Antiproliferative activity of syringic acid-loaded nanostructured lipid carriers against MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cells

Syringic acid (SA) is a phenolic herbal compound known to exert antiproliferative properties. However, its poor aqueous solubility and low bioavailability lead to limited therapeutic efficacy in treating breast cancer. Hence, to overcome the above problems, the current study aims to explore the quality by design (QbD) optimized syringic acid loaded nanostructured lipid carriers (SA-NLCs) to treat breast cancer. Here, SA-NLCs were formulated via the hot-melt emulsification method and optimized using the Box-Behnken design. The SA-NLCs exhibited spherical shapes with a particle size and zeta potential of 142.7 f 4 nm and -14.5 f 3.6 mV, respectively. The differential scanning calorimetry and powder XRD analyses showed the conversion of crystalline to amorphous form of SA after entrapping into NLCs. Also, the optimized SA-NLCs showed sustained drug release of 75.5 % and 97.6 % in pH 5.5 acetate buffer solution and pH 7.4 phosphate buffer saline respectively. The drug release kinetics study revealed that the optimized SA-NLCs exhibit the Weibull model with the Fickian drug release mechanism. Further, a significantly improved cytotoxicity of the optimized SA-NLCs (IC50: 3.8 f 0.2 mu g/mL) was observed as compared to free SA (IC50: 14.5 f 1.2 mu g/mL) on MCF-7 human breast carcinoma cell lines. Thus, the improved cytotoxicity of SA-NLCs on MCF-7 cell lines can be a suitable strategy for breast cancer treatment.