Farzaneh Vahedi - Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Department of Medical Biotechnology, school of Advanced Medical Technologies, Gorgan, Iran
Vahid Erfani-Moghadam - Medical Cellular & Molecular Research Center, Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Gorgan, Iran

Introduction: Nanotechnology showed promising results in cancer therapy. Nanocarriers (1–100 nm) can carry multiple drugs and also can be used to drug bioavailability. Curcumin (from Curcuma longa) showed great anticancer properties against breast cancer but has very low solubility. In this research, we encapsulated curcumin in generation five (G5) of Poly (amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimer to increase its solubility and evaluate the anticancer effect on MCF7 breast cancer cells. Methods: MCF-7 cell was cultured and MTS assay has been performed to study the cell toxicity. Different concentrations were chosen (1, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 80 micromolar) for free curcumin, encapsulated curcumin in PAMAM G5 (Cur/PAM) and intact dendrimer treatments. Additionally, flow cytometry assessment was used to evaluate cell cycles in all treatments Results: Based on MTS assay results, the half maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of Cur/PAM and free curcumin treatment were about 15 and 20 micromolar, respectively. Therefore it can be interpreted that application of PAMAM dendrimer increases the effect of curcumin because of increasing drug bioavailability. Additionally, IC50 of intact nanocarrier PAMAM G5 was obtained about 10 micromolar, this amount is at least ten times higher than molarity of dendrimer nanocarrier in curcumin nanoformulation.Therefore, we can conclude that Cur/PAM with a lower concentration of dendrimer can be used for further in vivo experiments. Conclusions: Considering the results and recently approved importance of curcumin for cancer therapy, this nanoformulation has the potential for further extensive in vitro and in vivo experiments.

Breast cancer,MCF7, Chemotherapy, Curcumin, Nanocarrier, PAMAM Dendrimer