Characteristics and pharmacokinetics of tripterygium glycosides nano-carries transdermal delivery systems:skin-blood synchronous microdialysis and numerical simulation

The traditional Chinese medicine tripterygium glycosides(TPG)is used clinically to treat some Rheumatism,Eczema,immunosuppression and tumor,with the activities of hypnosis,antipyretic,analgesic,antiinflammatory,allergy and antitumor.However TPG has low water solubility and low skin permeability,so its clinical use is limited.Transdermal delivery systems can provide a controlled drug release rate that can keep constant concentrations of drug in the plasma for up to multiple days,improved patient compliance,and the possibility ofreducing the rate and severity of side effects.In this study,a fast and sensitive technique skin-blood two sites synchronous microdialysis coupled with LC-MS was used to study the pharmacokinetic parameter of three different formulations(TPG nanoemulsion,TPG nanoemulsion based gels and TPG gel).Creating a multilayer model,use the model to simulate the three formulations dynamics in transdermal-drug delivery system.The experiment results showed that the TPG nanoemulsion,TPG nanoemulsion based gels can significantly raise the drug concentrations in skin more than that of TPG gels.The numerical simulation results indicating that TPG gel and TPG nanoemulsion are close to practical measurements,only in the concentration increase phase the numerical simulation result has some difference with the experimental results.TPG nanoemulsion based gels have significant difference with the experimental results,both in concentration increase stage and concentration decreasing stage,but its trend was same.The study shows that the skin-blood synchronous microdialysis technique provided a new method for the pharmacokinetics study of nanocarriers transdermal delivery systems.In addition,the microdialysis technique combined with mathematical modeling provides a very good platform for the further study of transdermal delivery system.

Nanoemulsion for delivery of anticancer drugs

Cancer refers to a collection of diseases that have abnormal cell growth as their hallmark.This inability of cytotoxic agents to distinguish between rapidly dividing healthy cells and rapidly multiplying cancerous cells produces the most notorious adverse effects of cytotoxic anticancer agents.As an essential tool in nanotechnology,nanoemulsions have therapeutic and clinical applications.Currently,nanoemulsions are considered to be one of the most feasible nano-carriers for delivering lipophilic antineoplastic agents with targeted delivery.In addition to solving water-solubilization issues,these formulations deliver specific targeting to cancer cells and might even be developed to overcome multi-drug resistance.Nanoemulsions overcome the problems associated with conventional drug delivery systems,such as low bioavailability and noncompliance.A review of nanoemulsion in cancer therapeutics is presented here to shed light on the current position of this technology.

Mesoporous silica as micro/nano-carrier： From passive to active cargo delivery, a mini review

Mesoporous silica has been widely explored for biomedical applications due to its unique structure and good biocompatibility. In particular it exhibits superior properties as micro/nano-carriers in the biomedical field. We explore their potentials in controlled drug/gene co-delivery and photodynamic therapy for cancer treatment both in vitro and in vivo. By incorporating mesoporous silica nanoparticles（MSNP） with two-dimensional nanomaterial, graphene oxide nano-sheet, we utilize MSNP in cellular bio-imaging with squaraine dye. Meanwhile, through delicate combination between mesoporous silica micro/nano carriers with catalytic/bio-catalytic reactions, we manage to achieve self-propelled micro/nano-motors based on mesoporous silica that are capable of transporting cargos in an active manner. Especially, enzyme powered mesoporous silica motors can be powered by physiologically available fuels such as glucose and urea,which are advantageous for future biomedical use. Motion control on both velocity and movement direction provides a powerful tool for targeted drug delivery. Therefore, such mesoporous silica based active carriers pave way to the solution of targeted drug delivery for cancer treatment in future nano-medicine field.

Recent advances of two-dimensional materials in smart drug delivery nanosystems

Smart drug delivery nano-systems show significant changes in their physical or chemical properties in response to slight change in environmental physical and/or chemical signals,and further releasing drugs adjusted to the progression of the disease at the right target and rate intelligently.Two-dimensional materials possess dramatic status extend all over various scientific and technological disciplines by reason of their exceptional unique properties in application of smart drug delivery nano-systems.In this review,we summarized current progress to highlight various kinds of two-dimensional materials drug carriers which are widely explored in smart drug delivery systems as well as classification of stimuli responsive two-dimensional materials and the advantages and disadvantages of their applications.Consequently,we anticipate that this review might inspire the development of new two-dimensional materials with smart drug delivery systems,and deepen researchers’understanding of smart nano-carries based on two-dimensional materials.

Curcumin based combination therapy for anti-breast cancer： from in vitro drug screening to in vivo efficacy evaluation

While drug resistance appears to be an inevitable problem of an increasing number of anticancer drugs in monotherapy, combination drug therapy has become a prosperous method to reduce the administered total drug dosages as well as overcome the drug resistance of carcinoma cells. Curcumin, considered to possess multi- faceted roles in cancer treatment according to its multiple anti-neoplastic mechanisms as a depressor of chemo- resistance, can significantly facilitate its anti-cancer functions and improve therapeutic effects via combination usage with a variety of other drugs with different reaction mechanisms. To explore this possibility, four anti-cancer chemotherapeutic agents that all possess a certain degree of drug resistance problems, including three tyrosine kinase inhibitors （erlotinib, sunitinib and sorafenib） that are acting on different cell pathways and a typical anticancer drug doxorubicin, were combined with curcumin individually to examine the synergistic anti-tumor effect both in vitro and in vivo. Results revealed that sunitinib combined with curcumin at the molar ratio of 0.46 yielded the most potent synergistic effect in vitro, and was therefore chosen for further animal evaluation. To further enhance the anti- cancer effect, bovine serum albumin （BSA） nanoparticles were utilized as a carrier to deliver the selected drug combination in situ. Preliminary in vivo findings confirmed our hypothesis of being able to maintain a similar injected drug ratio for prolonged time periods in tested animals by our approach, thereby maximizing the therapeutic potency yet minimizing the toxicity of these drugs. This work could open up a new avenue on combination drug therapy and realization the clinical utility of such drugs.