• Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation
• /
• v.41 no.5
• /
• pp.295-300
• /
• 2011

Paclitaxel is a well known anticancer agent and has been a pharmaceutical challenge because of its extremely poor water-solubility and susceptibility to the p-glycoprotein (p-gp)-mediated efflux in multi-drug resistant (MDR) cancer cells. Tributyrin (TB), a triglyceride with relatively short fatty acid chains, was chosen as solubilizing vehicle for paclitaxel based on the solubility study (26.6 mg/mL). Tributyrin (10%) o/w emulsion containing paclitaxel (5%), egg phosphatidylcholine (5%) and pegylated phospholipid (0.5%) was prepared by high pressure homogenization to obtain submicron-sized emulsion. The mean particle size of the resultant TB emulsion was 395.5 nm. Paclitaxel in TB emulsion showed higher anticancer activity against human breast cancer cell line, MCF-7, than free form delivered in DMSO solution. On the other hand, its anticancer activity was significantly reduced in MCF-7/ADR, a MDR variant cancer cell line of MCF-7, and recovered by the presence of verapamil, suggesting of the susceptibility to the p-gp mediated efflux even though paclitaxel was encapsulated into emulsion. The TB emulsion showed great potential as a promising vehicle for water-insoluble anticancer agent, paclitaxel.

• Natural Product Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.6
• /
• pp.268-271
• /
• 2004

In order to examine their effects on the P-glycoprotein (P-gp) activity in human breast cancer cells, MCF-7/ADR, one hundred Indonesian plant extracts were screened. Among them, the five chloroform extracts of Calotropis gigantea, Curcuma aeruginosa, Merremia mammosa, Sindora sumatrana, and Zingiber cassumunar, showed the most potent P-gp inhibitory activity. When each of these extracts was treated together with the anticancer agent, daunomycin, they increased the cytotoxic activity of daunomycin up to $IC_{50}$ values of less than $6.62\;{\mu}M$, which is a value with a positive control, verapamil. Also, other 15 plant extracts exhibited significant P-gp inhibitory activity with $IC_{50}$ values between 6.62 and $13.20\;{\mu}M$. These prospective samples will be subjected to further laboratory phytochemical investigation to find active principles.

• BMB Reports
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.269-273
• /
• 1998

The objective of this study was to evaluate the reversal of multi drug resistance of human cell lines by specific inhibitors of ${\alpha}-glycosidase$ and mannosidases that had been reported to be involved in N-linked oligosaccharide processing of glycoproteins. N-methyldeoxynojirimycin, I-deoxynojirimycin, and castanospermine, which were known to be potent inhibitors of both ${\alpha}-glycosidase$ I and II, showed no activity against the multidrug resistant phenotype of the cell lines of SNU1DOX, KB-V1, and MCF-7/ADR. In contrast, I-deoxymannojirimycin, an inhibitor of mannosidase I, resulted in a slight reversal for the vinblastine resistance of the KB-V1 cell line, but did not show any activity toward the other cell lines. Parallel experiments with tunicamycin, an inhibitor of N-linked glycosylation, also resulted in no significant changes in multidrug resistant (MDR) phenotype of the cell lines tested in this work. These observations suggest that the unglycosylation of P-glycoprotein associated with the inhibitor treatments might not be correlated with the reversal of multidrug resistance of the cell lines tested in this study.