Lipid nanoparticles as a tool for more efficient drug delivery

The objective of this thesis is to study how lipid nanoparticles, in particular liposomes, should be prepared, how to characterize them and how effective they are in therapeutic application in breast cancers (BC). This is a review of three papers; one detailing how to prepare and characterize the nanoparticles and the other two describing their application in drug delivery against breast cancer using Triple-Negative-Breast-Cancer (TNBC) and MCF-7 breast cancer lines for the study. Lipid nanoparticles have shown in the last years to be especially effective as drug delivery tools, to have a stable drug loading, to extend the pharmacokinetic, to reduce the off-target side effects, to be especially important to make viable, drugs that have very low therapeutic indexes and also to permit the co-administration of certain drugs to better deal with Multi-Drug-Resistance(MDR). In the second study, a polyethylene glycol-modified nanoscale liposomal formulation (LipoRV), with a new anthraquinone derivative is shown to have a strong effect on TNBC cells being capable of inhibit the cell cycle, induce cell apoptosis and decrease the long-term proliferative potential of TNBC cells. Furthermore, this formulation has also a good safety profile. In the last study, a multi functional liposome is used for the co-delivery of curcumin (CUR) and docetaxel (DTX) in order to better deal with MDR, to have a better drug accumulation on cancer sites and to decrease toxicity to normal cells. It proved to be more effective on all of the three fronts with respect to the free drugs. All this proof makes lipid nanoparticles an effective tool to deal with tumor and cancer.