comparative of in vitro evaluation between erlotinib loaded nanostructured lipid carriers and liposomes against a549 lung cancer cell line

Erlotinib (elt) as a small molecule with poor solubility, poor bioavailability, and instability in gastrointestinal environment, has been considered as a therapeutic agent for nonsmallcell lung cancer (nsclc) therapy through oral administration. in the present study, eltliposome and eltnlcs were successfully prepared and characterized by assessment of the particle size, zeta potential (zp), polydispersity index (pdi), encapsulation efficiency (ee) and drug loading (dl). dapi staining and flow cytometry techniques were employed to probe anticancer activities of the optimal formulations. the obtained results indicated that the average size of optimized eltnlcs was 109±2 nm, while the optimal formulation of eltliposome was 130±4 nm. in addition, the values of ee, dl and cellular uptake were higher in eltnlcs than eltliposome. moreover, the stability of eltnlcs and eltliposome were not significantly changed (p > 0.05) within storage time. the results of anticancer assessment showed that eltnlcs caused more cell viability reduction than eltliposome and free elt. according to the flow cytometry and dapi staining results, the exposed a549 cells with eltnlcs had more rate of apoptosis than eltliposome. the obtained data from this study clearly showed that eltnlcs had better anticancer activity than eltliposome, which may be is related to the effective nano particle size, pdi, ee, and dl of eltnlcs.