Microfluidic assembly of liposomes dual-loaded with catechin and curcumin for enhancing bioavailability

Abstract

Curcumin and catechin have inhibitory effects on tumor cell growth. However, the biological activity of curcumin is limited by its low solubility in water. Liposomes are useful carriers of bioactive compounds given their structural similarity to the cellular membrane, but conventional methods for dual-loading liposome preparation are limited to scaled-up applications. Herein, we first applied a microfluidic technique to produce dual-loaded liposomes containing curcumin and catechin by using dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine as a building block. The dual-loading liposomes were monodispersed (PdI < 0.2) spherical vesicles, less than 200 nm in size and the encapsulation efficiencies of curcumin and catechin on the liposome were 100 % and 16.77 %, respectively. Although all anti-proliferation activities were dose-dependently increased in colon cancer cells by catechin, curcumin, and liposomes, only the dual-loaded liposomes exhibited significantly higher inhibition activity (p < 0.05). These results demonstrate the potential of dual encapsulation of bioactive compounds for enhancing bioavailability and advance the dual-loading technique using microfluidic assembly in the field of liposomal encapsulation of drugs or functional compounds.