Nano Packaged Tamoxifen and Curcumin; Effective Formulation against Sensitive and Resistant MCF-7 Cells

Tamoxifen is routinely used for treatment of estrogen-positive breast carcinoma. approximately, 50% of patients with metastatic cancer will develop resistance to tamoxifen. in this research, tamoxifen was combined with the anti-cancer compound curcumin. diblock nanopolymer was used to package the new formulation of curcumin and tamoxifen. anti-cancer efficacy of the obtained compound was evaluated in tamoxifen-sensitive (ts). mcf-7, tamoxifen-resistant (tr) mcf-7 cancer cells and fibroblast cells. mtt assay was used to evaluate anti-proliferation and toxicity. flow cytometry and annexin-v-fluos were used to assay anti-proliferation and induction of apoptosis respectively. our results indicate that the obtained nano-compound is less toxic to normal cells compared to tamoxifen alone, and has higher anti-proliferation and pro-apoptotic activity on ts-mcf-7 and tr-mcf-7. the nanopolymer reduces the tamoxifen toxicity in normal cells and counters the developed resistance to the drug in cancer cells.