Curcumin nanocrystallites are an ideal nanoplatform for cancer chemotherapy

Curcumin, a principal active component extracted from rhi-zomes of turmeric, has a promising clinical activity against a wide variety of tumors. It's extremely low solubility in water is the great limitation in the application of cancer chemotherapy. Nanocrystals have recently emerged as a promising pharmaceutical preparations way for the poorly water soluble drugs. Accordingly, we prepared curcumin nanocrystals (CNs) with a mean diameter of 15 nm by quick emulsion freeze-drying method. CNs proved to be effective in drug delivery, such as avoiding uptake by the reticuloendothelial system (RES), prolonging the circulation times of curcumin as well as enhancing the well-known permeation and retention (EPR) effect, as a result of which CNs accumulate at the tumor site. Furthermore, we design to conjugate a targeting ligand-cyclic iRGD peptide to CNs in order to selectively deliver Curcumin to cancer cells with greater efficiency and enhance the permeability of cells leading more drugs inside cells. Hence, our results suggested that iRGD-CN, which be of both characteristics of passive and active targeting, may be a potential drug delivery system in enhance the effective therapy of curcumin chemotherapy.