In a recent study, we showed that selleck compound crystalline bacterial cell surface layer proteins are capable to coat emulsomes and modify their entire surface characteristics, e. g. by altering zeta potential. The colloidal characteristics of the emulsome evidence its robust character and indicate its potential in versatile use for lipophilic therapeutic agents other than curcumin. As previously Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries reported, the size of emulsomes is predomin antly determined by the phospholipid to tripalmitin ra tio, and evidently, incorporation of curcumin did not influence neither particle size nor zeta potential char acteristics. Moreover, the particle sizes can be tuned by altering the phospholipid to solid lipid ratio. Although curcumin, DMC and BDMC show only very small chemical modifications with respect to their num ber of methoxy groups, a decrease in hydrophobicity in the order of curcumin DMC BDMC is known.

Therefore, a shift in the ratio of the analogues inside the lipophilic fat core should be expected, but not in terms of a relative decrease of curcumin compared to DMC and BDMC. Hence, this Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries result contradicts with the relative hydrophobicity of the analogues, as well as the findings of Rungphanichkul et al.where encapsulation of curcuminoids in non ionic surfactant based liposomes, so called niosomes, favored the incorp oration of curcumin rather than its analogues. Al though some thermodynamic parameters such as the polarity, as well as the molecular electrostatic interac tions of curcuminoids with charged groups of lipid com pounds, such as hexadecylamine, are thought to play a role in this selective incorporation process, the complete clarification of this finding merits further study.

Biological efficacy of CurcuEmulsomes was studied in vitro on HepG2 cell line model. In line with earlier studies on emulsomes, the delay in cytotoxicity is attributed to the slow release of curcumin entrapped in side the solid core of emulsomes. Hence, on the short terms the cytotoxic effect of CurcuEmulsomes remains limited. Nevertheless, CurcuEmulsomes displayed pro longed biological Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries activity and acted as efficiently as free curcumin Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries on long terms. Like free curcumin, CurcuEmulsomes caused morpho logical changes in HepG2 cells where treated cells distin guished from untreated ones by their round shape. Based on AFM studies, Jiang et al.

demonstrated the effect of curcumin on cytoskeletal arrangement of HepG2 cells and, combined with flow cytometric ana lysis, correlated this morphological effect with the up regulated expression of tubulin. The latter caused disorganization of the well organized, Inhibitors,Modulators,Libraries filamentous net work of healthy cells as deduced from most the adopted round shape. Therefore, delivering curcumin into the cell, CurcuEmulsomes must be initiating the same effect. Indicating for an enhanced stability, fluorescence im ages demonstrated that incorporated curcumin preserve its fluorescence intensity for longer times compared to free curcumin.