fungal infected adipose stem cells: the effects of novel lipo-niosome nanoparticles loaded with amphotericin b and thymus essential oil

Objective: in this study, we aimed to develop new lipo-niosomes based nanoparticles loaded with amphotericin b (amb) and thymus essential oil (teo) and test their effectiveness in the treatment of fungal-infected human adipose stem cells (hascs). materials and methods: in this experimental study, optimal formulation of amb and teo loaded lipo-niosome (based on lipid-surfactant thin-film hydration method) was chemically, and biologically characterized. therefore, encapsulation capacity, drug release, size, and the survival rate of cells with different concentrations of free and encapsulated amb/ teo were evaluated using the mtt method, and its antifungal activity was compared with conventional amb. results: lipo-niosome containing tween 60 surfactant: cholesterol: dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (dppc): polyethylene glycol (peg) with a ratio of 20:40:60:3 were chosen as optimal formulation. lipo-niosomes entrapment efficiency was 94.15%. the drug release rate after 24 hours was 52%, 54%, and 48% for lipo-amb, lipo-teo, and lipo-amb/teo, respectively. physical and chemical characteristics of the lipo-niosomes particles indicated size of 200 nm and a dispersion index of 0.32 with a zeta potential of -24.56 mv. furthermore, no chemical interaction between drugs and nano-carriers was observed. the cell viability of adipose mesenchymal stem cells exposed to 50 μg/ml of free amb, free teo, and free amb/teo was 13.4, 58, and 36.9%, respectively. whereas the toxicity of the encapsulated formulas of these drugs was 48.9, 70.8, and 58.3% respectively. the toxicity of nanoparticles was very low (8.5%) at this concentration. fluorescence microscopic images showed that the antifungal activity of lipo-amb/ teo was significantly higher than free formulas of amb, teo, and amb/teo. conclusion: in this study, we investigated the efficacy of the teo/amb combination, in both free and encapsulatedniosomal form, on the growth of fungal infected-hascs. the results showed that the amb/teo-loaded lipo-niosomes can be suggested as a new efficient anti-fungal nano-system for patients treated with hascs.