Impacts of curcumin nanoemulgel on cell viability and apoptotic pathways: a comprehensive study of ROS generation across different skin cancer cell lines.

OBJECTIVE

Conventional curcumin formulations, such as gels, creams, and oral dosage forms, have poor solubility and bioavailability, limiting its therapeutic efficiency. Therefore, the primary objective of this research work was to formulate a curcumin nanoemulgel to increase the solubility and therapeutic efficacy of curcumin and evaluate its cytotoxic, apoptotic, and Reactive oxygen species (ROS) activities against various cell lines.

METHOD: A curcumin nanoemulgel was formulated by adding the optimized curcumin nanoemulsion to plain carbopol gel and then subjected to various evaluation studies.

RESULTS

The optimized curcumin nanoemulgel exhibited better growth suppression of cancer cell lines, especially in A431 squamous cell carcinoma cells, with an inhibition percentage of 66.52 ± 1.3% an IC50 value of 123.30 µM. Flow cytometry analysis revealed that curcumin nanoemulgel promoted apoptosis, with larger percentages of late apoptotic cells in A431 cells. The dual AO/EB fluorescence microscopy revealed distinctive apoptotic characteristics, including chromatin condensation, nuclear fragmentation, membrane blebbing, and the formation of apoptotic bodies.

CONCLUSION

All of these results demonstrate that the nanoemulgel formulation is a superior therapeutic choice as it not only enhances curcumin's anticancer effectiveness but also ensures its safety in healthy cells.