Pharmaceutical nanocrystals represent a promising new formulation that combines the benefits of bulk crystalline materials and colloidal nanoparticles. To be applied in vivo, nanocrystals must meet several criteria, namely colloidal stability in physiological media, non-toxicity to healthy cells, avoidance of macrophage clearance, and bioactivity in the target tissue. In the present work, curcumin, a naturally occurring poorly water-soluble molecule with a broad spectrum of bioactivity has been considered a candidate substance for preparing pharmaceutical nanocrystals. Curcumin nanocrystals in the size range of 40-90 nm were prepared by wet milling using the following combination of steric and ionic stabilizers: Tween 80, sodium dodecyl sulfate, Poloxamer 188, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, phospholipids (with and without polyethylene glycol), and their combination. Nanocrystals stabilized by a combination of phospholipids enriched with polyethylene glycol proved to be the most successful in all evaluated criteria; they were colloidally stable in all media, exhibited low macrophage clearance, and proved non-toxic to healthy cells. This curcumin nanoformulation also exhibited outstanding anticancer potential comparable to commercially used cytostatics (IC50 = 73 μM; 24 h, HT-29 colorectal carcinoma cell line) which represents an improvement of several orders of magnitude when compared to previously studied curcumin formulations. This work shows that the preparation of phospholipid-stabilized nanocrystals allows for the conversion of poorly soluble compounds into a highly effective "solution-like" drug delivery system at pharmaceutically relevant drug concentrations.

Department of Chemical Engineering University of Chemistry and Technology Prague Technická 3 166 28 Prague 6 Czech Republic

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