Fucose decorated solid-lipid nanocarriers mediate efficient delivery of methotrexate in breast cancer therapeutics

[Display omitted] ⿢Formulation & characterization of Methotrexate-loaded fucose anchored SLNs.⿢Fu-SLNs-MTX prepared with Gelucire and Stearic acid showed controlled drug release.⿢Fu-SLNs-MTX showed better cytotoxicity to plain drug and SLNs-MTX in MCF-7 cells.⿢Engineered SLNs showed pronounced anti-tumor effect in DMBA-induced animal model. The present study is designed to engineer fucose anchored methotrexate loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) to target breast cancer. The developed nano-carriers were characterized with respect to particle size, PDI, zeta potential, drug loading and entrapment, in-vitro release etc. The characterized formulations were used to comparatively assess cellular uptake, cell-viability, apoptosis, lysosomal membrane permeability, bioavailability, biodistribution, changes in tumor volume and animal survival. The ex-vivo results showed greater cellular uptake and better cytotoxicity at lower IC50 of methotrexate in breast cancer cells. Further, we observed increased programmed cell death (apoptosis) with altered lysosomal membrane permeability and better rate of degradation of lysosomal membrane in-vitro. On the other hand, in-vivo evaluation showed maximum bioavailability and tumor targeting efficiency with minimum secondary drug distribution in various organs with formulated and anchored nano-carrier when compared with free drug. Moreover, sizeable reduction in tumor burden was estimated with fucose decorated SLNs as compared to that seen with free MTX and SLNs-MTX. Fucose decorated SLNs showed promising results to develop therapeutic interventions for breast cancer, and paved a way to explore this promising and novel nano-carrier which enables to address breast cancer.