Abstract
Trans- ferulic acid (TFA) is a byproduct of hydroxyl cinnamic acid and it has been reported that TFA possesses different biological activities such as an anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-antioxidant, and antibacterial. Due to its weak solubility and insufficient absorption in gastrointestinal tract, use of trans- ferulic acid in treating a variety of disorders is constrained. Thus, to address these issues, chitosan and tragacanth bicomplex were used to encapsulate TFA for proper delivery. Additionally, the anticarcinogenicity and in-vivo anti-inflammatory potential of TFA-loaded tragacanth-chitosan nanoparticles were investigated. Anticarcinogenic potential of the synthesized nanoparticles were evaluated by using vero cell line was as non-cancerous cells and Hela as well as MBMB cell line as cancerous cell and it was observed that trans-ferulic acid loaded nanoparticles are non-cytotoxic under the tested conditions, as over 80% of vero cells remained alive after 24 h at the lowest concentration. Cytotoxicity of these nanoparticles on HeLa and MDA-MB-231 cells showed concentration-dependent cytotoxicity after 48 h, with 86.68% cell death observed in Hela cells and 94.54% in MDA-MB-231 cells at 60µM concentration. Carrageenan-induced rat paw edema was used to evaluate the in-vivo anti-inflammatory activity. It was observed that TFA loaded nanoparticles decreased rat paw edema by 40.67% and increased cell viability by 84.03 ± 0.62% in vero cell lines. A statistically significant data was considered if p-value less than 0.05. This work suggest that encapsulated trans-ferulic acid be more suitable for use in various clinical applications.