Key result
Doxorubicin-loaded lemon nanoparticles markedly reduce in vitro cancer cell viability by up to ~98%.
Why the study?
Citrus lemon-derived extracellular vesicle-like nanoparticles have selective antitumor effects, but information on their drug delivery capability remains limited.
Citrus lemon-derived nanoparticles can efficiently load doxorubicin and enhance its intracellular delivery and cytotoxicity in various cancer cell lines in vitro.
These nanoparticles extend plant-derived carriers to doxorubicin; leaves open in vivo efficacy and clinical translation.
Recently, lipid bilayer nanoparticles, similar to extracellular vesicles, have been identified in various plant juices and extracts.These plant-derived nanoparticles have attracted attention in the medical field for their intrinsic anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and for the advantages of inexpensive and abundant raw materials.Although citrus lemon-derived extracellular vesicle-like nanoparticles (cNPs) exert selective antitumor effects on several cancer cell lines, information on these effects remains limited.Therefore, in this study, we focused on cNPs as nanocarriers for effective drug delivery to cancer cells without introducing additional surface modification, with the aim of evaluating their intrinsic drug delivery capability.We optimized the conditions for loading doxorubicin hydrochloride (Dox), a model anticancer drug, into cNPs and successfully prepared Dox-loaded cNPs (Dox-cNPs) with high loading efficiency.In vitro cellular uptake of Dox-cNP-based samples by cancer cell lines was evaluated using confocal microscopy and flow cytometry, while their cytotoxicity was assessed using the Cell Counting Kit-8 assay.Phosphate-buffered salinepretreated Dox-cNPs increased intracellular Dox fluorescence in rat glioblastoma (C6) cells.Notably, Dox-cNP-based samples exerted substantial cytotoxic effects not only on the rat C6 cell line but also on the human hepatoblastoma (HepG2) and breast cancer (MCF-7) cell lines.These findings suggest that cNPs may serve as potential nanocarriers for intracellular delivery of anticancer drugs.
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Suwabe et al. (2026) studied Cancer (tumor cell lines). Doxorubicin-loaded citrus lemon-derived nanoparticles (Dox-cNPs) vs. Free doxorubicin, cNPs alone, and untreated control was evaluated on Cell viability at 72 hours. Doxorubicin-loaded citrus lemon-derived nanoparticles exhibited marked cytotoxicity, reducing cell viability to 20.33%, 1.46%, 2.83%, and 34.70% in C6, A549, HepG2, and MCF-7 cells at 72 hours.
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