Formulation and Characterization of Curcumin Niosomes: Antioxidant and Cytotoxicity Studies

Abstract

Curcumin’s applications in the treatment of conditions including osteoarthritis, dementia, malignancies of the pancreas, and malignancies of the intestines have drawn increasing attention. It has several wonderful qualities, including being an anti-inflammatory agent, an anti-mutagenic agent, and an antioxidant, and has substantially reduced inherent cytotoxicity outcomes. Although curcumin possesses multiple known curative properties, due to its limited bioavailability, it is necessary to develop efficient strategies to overcome these hurdles. To establish an effective administration method, various niosomal formulations were optimized using the Box–Behnken design and assessed in the current investigation. To examine the curcumin niosomes, zeta sizer, zeta potential, entrapment efficiency, SEM, antioxidant potential, cytotoxicity, and release studies were performed. The optimized curcumin niosomes exhibited an average particle size of 169.4 nm, a low PDI of 0.189, and high entrapment efficiency of 85.4%. The release profile showed 79.39% curcumin after 24 h and had significantly higher antioxidant potential as compared with that of free curcumin. The cytotoxicity results of curcumin niosomes presented increased mortality in human ovarian cancer A2780.

Keywords

• curcumin
• niosomes
• Box–Behnken
• antioxidant
• cytotoxicity
• ovarian cancer