Introduction: Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality. The development and evaluation of effective treatment strategies for lung cancer are of high clinical importance. Everolimus (Eve) has been shown to upregulate the expression of phosphatases and inhibit the migration and proliferation of A549 cancer cells. The present study focuses on the synthesis of biodegradable bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles for the loading and delivery of Eve. Methods: In the desolvation process, Eve molecules were kept in the BSA system. The physicochemical properties of the Eve drug containing BSA nanoparticles (Eve@BSA) have been exactly characterized. The loading and release assays of Eve were also studied at different glutaraldehyde percentages, times, and solvents. Results: Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) analysis of BSA nanoparticles revealed a spherical morphology with an average size of 93.7 ± 3.7 nm. The results demonstrated that BSA nanoparticles are highly efficient carriers, achieving an Eve loading efficiency of approximately 54% at 4% glutaraldehyde. The release of Eve from the BSA nanoparticles was dependent on the solvent and duration of incubation. According to the MTT assay, Eve@BSA exhibited low cytotoxicity and high biocompatibility against L929 fibroblast cells. In contrast, the cytotoxicity of Eve@BSA against A549 cells (IC50 ≈ 47 μg/mL) was significantly higher than that of free Eve (IC50 ≈ 283 μg/m- L) after 48 hours. Discussion: The synergistic effects of Eva@BSA nanoformulation due to functional groups-rich BSA seemed to improve in vitro antiproliferation efficacies compared with the single treatment of Eve. Conclusion: The findings confirm the synergistic anticancer effect of Eve@BSA, indicating that this nanosystem may serve as a promising candidate for the treatment of lung cancer.
Rizi et al. (Wed,) studied this question.