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In milk caseins exists a natural nanostructure, which can be exploited as a carrier of hydrophobic drugs. Here we investigated the complex formation of curcumin with bovine casein micelles (CMs) and its use as a vehicle for drug delivery to cancer cells. DLS studies of the CM suspension that was stable in buffer solution (pH 7.4) showed an average size distribution of <200 nm. SEM and AFM studies showed that the particles were roughly spherical in shape. Steady-state fluorescence spectroscopy of the CM-curcumin complex formation revealed that curcumin molecules formed complexes with CMs (CM-curcumin complex) through hydrophobic interactions. The binding constant for the CM-curcumin interaction was calculated to be 1.48 x 10(4) M(-1), as determined by the curcumin fluorescence. Fluorescence quenching showed that curcumin molecules quench the intrinsic fluorescence of caseins upon binding. We evaluated the utility of CMs as carriers of curcumin by using in vitro cultured HeLa cells. Cytotoxicity studies of HeLa cells revealed that the IC50 of free curcumin and the CM-curcumin complex was 14.85 and 12.69 microM, respectively.

Tissue engineering (TE) is a multidisciplinary field that aims at the in vitro engineering of tissues and organs by integrating science and technology of cells, materials and biochemical factors. Mimicking the natural extracellular matrix is one of the critical and challenging technological barriers, for which scaffold engineering has become a prime focus of research within the field of TE. Amongst the variety of materials tested, silk fibroin (SF) is increasingly being recognized as a promising material for scaffold fabrication. Ease of processing, excellent biocompatibility, remarkable mechanical properties and tailorable degradability of SF has been explored for fabrication of various articles such as films, porous matrices, hydrogels, nonwoven mats, etc., and has been investigated for use in various TE applications, including bone, tendon, ligament, cartilage, skin, liver, trachea, nerve, cornea, eardrum, dental, bladder, etc. The current review extensively covers the progress made in the SF‐based in vitro engineering and regeneration of various human tissues and identifies opportunities for further development of this field.

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We report here the potential of Pluronic tri-block copolymer micelles for the formulation of curcumin, a natural dietary compound having great therapeutic potential against many diseases including cancer. Two most commonly used Pluronic F127 and F68 were used for the formulation and analyzed for curcumin encapsulation efficiency and stability. The encapsulation of drug in micelle was highly dependent on drug-to-copolymer ratio. Pluronic F127 showed better encapsulation efficiency than Pluronic F68. In vitro release profile demonstrated slower and sustained release of curcumin from Pluronic micelles. The lyophilized form of the formulations exhibited good stability for long-term storage. The physical interaction of curcumin with Pluronic was evident by XRD analysis, UV-visible, fluorescence, and FT-IR spectroscopy. AFM study showed that the drug-encapsulated micelles were spherical in shape with diameters below 100 nm. The in vitro cytotoxicity of the drug formulations was investigated with HeLa cancer cells. Pluronic-encapsulated curcumin showed comparable anticancer activity with free curcumin.