Overcoming drug-resistance in lung cancer cells by paclitaxel loaded galactoxyloglucan nanoparticles

Paclitaxel, an effective chemotherapeutic drug, is insoluble in aqueous solvents and is usually administered with excipients which have side effects. The use of this drug is also limited due to multi-drug resistance. In this study polysaccharide nanoparticles are used in the delivery of chemotherapeutic drug while minimizing side-effects, solubility issues and drug resistance. The use of biopolymers like galactoxyloglucan to synthesize nanoparticle makes it more biocompatible. This study involves the synthesis of PST-PTX nanoparticles using tamarind seed polysaccharide and Paclitaxel by epichlorohydrin crosslinking. The particles were further characterized by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and UV–Visible spectroscopy. The cytotoxicity of PST-PTX nanoparticles in cancer cell lines and resistant cancer cell lines were determined by MTT assay. The quantitative analysis of cell death was determined by Annexin V dead cell assay, Caspase 3/7 assay and expression of pro-apoptotic protein Bax. The ability of the nanoparticle to overcome multi-drug resistance was evaluated by the expression of multidrug-resistant proteins P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and Breast cancer resistant protein (BCRP) in lung adenocarcinoma resistant cells (A549^R). The present study provides evidence for the ability of PST-PTX nanoparticle to overcome multi-drug resistance and cause apoptotic cell death. The particle was found to be more effective than Paclitaxel in causing cell death in resistant cancer cells. Moreover, the particles were found to downregulate the expression of multi-drug resistant proteins P-gp and BCRP in resistant cell lines suggesting the ability of PST-PTX nanoparticles to overcome multi-drug resistance.