Curcumin loaded in bovine serum albumin–chitosan derived nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery

The main aim of this study is to prepare biocompatible polymeric nanoparticles for targeted delivery of curcumin to human colorectal adenocarcinoma (DLD-1) cells. Curcumin has an ability to block proliferation of cancer cells by suppressing the nuclear transcription factor NF-KB hence, it is chosen as drug in the current study. To avoid its low bio-availability, high dosage and poor aqueous solubility, curcumin nanoparticles are prepared and loaded in naturally available biopolymers like chitosan and bovine serum albumin (BSA) by nanoprecipitation method at pH 6.3. The prepared nanoformulation was then characterized for surface morphology, particle size, polydispersity index, FT-IR spectra, UV–Visible spectrometer, confocal microscopy and in vitro cytotoxicity studies. Results showed that sizes of the prepared nanoparticles were ranged between 181 and 363 nm and curcumin-loaded particles were selectively targeting colorectal carcinoma cells effectively when concentration gets increased. So this study proved that BSA–chitosan based nanoparticles can be used as an efficient vehicle for effective curcumin delivery in treatment of cancer cells.