Abstract
Chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (CICI), also known as “chemobrain,” is a common side effect of breast cancer therapy which causes oxidative stress and generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Ferulic acid (FA), a natural polyphenol, belongs to BCS class II is confirmed to have nootropic, neuroprotective and antioxidant effects. Here, we have developed FA solid dispersion (SD) in order to enhance its therapeutic potential against chemobrain. An amorphous ferulic acid loaded leucin solid dispersion (FA-Leu SD) was prepared by utilizing amino acid through spray-drying technique. The solid-state characterization was carried out via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Additionally, in-vitro release studies and antioxidant assay were also performed along with in-vivo locomotor, biochemical and histopathological analysis. The physical properties showed that FA-Leu SD so formed exhibited spherical, irregular surface hollow cavity of along with broad melting endotherm as observed from FE-SEM and DSC results. The XRD spectra demonstrated absence of sharp and intense peaks in FA-Leu SD which evidenced for complete encapsulation of drug into carrier. Moreover, in-vitro drug release studies over a period of 5 h in PBS (pH 7.4) displayed a significant enhanced release in the first hr (68. 49 ± 5.39%) and in-vitro DPPH assay displayed greater antioxidant potential of FA in FA-Leu SD. Furthermore, the in-vivo behavioral findings of FA-Leu SD (equivalent to 150 mg/kg of free FA) exhibited positive results accompanied by in-vivo biochemical and molecular TNF-α showed a significant difference (p < 0.001) vis-à-vis DOX treated group upon DOX + FA-Leu SD. Additionally, histopathological analysis revealed neuroprotective effects of FA-Leu SD together with declined oxidative stress due to antioxidant potential of FA which was induced by anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). Overall, the above findings concluded that spray-dried FA-Leu SD could be useful for the treatment of chemotherapy induced cognitive impairment.
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Abbreviations
- FA:
-
Ferulic Acid
- Leu:
-
Leucine
- PM:
-
Physical mixture
- FA-Leu SD:
-
Ferulic acid loaded solid dispersion
- UV:
-
Ultraviolet spectrophotometer
- FTIR:
-
Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometer
- DSC:
-
Differential scanning colorimeter
- PXRD:
-
Powder X-ray diffraction
- FESEM:
-
Field emission scanning electron microscope
- DPPH:
-
1,1-Diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl
- SD:
-
Solid dispersion
- CICI:
-
Chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment
- DOX:
-
Doxorubicin
- ATChI:
-
Acetylthiocholine iodide
- ROS:
-
Reactive oxygen species
- FZ:
-
Favorable zone
- UFZ:
-
Unfavourable zone
- LZ:
-
Light zone
- DZ:
-
Dark zone
- LDT:
-
Light and Dark test
- TSLZ:
-
Time spent in light zone
- TSDZ:
-
Time spent in dark zone
- OF:
-
Open field
- OFT:
-
Open field test
- TSFZ:
-
Time spent in favorable zone
- TSUZ:
-
Time spent in unfavourable zone
- LPO:
-
Lipid peroxidation
- AChEs:
-
Acetylcholinesterase
- GSH:
-
Glutathione
- SOD:
-
Superoxide dismutase
- TNF-α:
-
Tumor necrosis factor α
- Eq.:
-
Equivalent
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Acknowledgements
DS duly acknowledges Sanchit Arora, Pharmaceutics Department, DPSRU, New Delhi for rendering help to finalize the revised manuscript. CS is thankful to the Dr. Rajendra Kumar, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, United States for hel** to address the comments. The authors acknowledge generous support of ISF College of Pharmacy and IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala for providing appropriate facilities and instrumentation during the study. The authors would like to thank Punjab University, Chandigarh for providing the PXRD and FE-SEM instrumentation facilities; ISF College of Pharmacy, Moga for providing the instrumentation facilities for UV, FTIR and DSC studies and for performing in-vivo studies on zebrafish. CS duly acknowledges the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB, GoI) for providing the necessary equipment (spray dryer) to develop the novel formulation under the project EEQ/2020/000616.
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DS: Performed experiments and written the manuscript. SK: Performed in vivo studies. AS: Planned and supervised in vivo studies. RKN and CS: Designed the project and Supervision.
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Shukla, D., Kaur, S., Singh, A. et al. Enhanced antichemobrain activity of amino acid assisted ferulic acid solid dispersion in adult zebrafish (Danio rerio). Drug Deliv. and Transl. Res. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13346-024-01546-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13346-024-01546-5