Bacterial Ghosts Carrying 5-Fluorouracil: A Novel Biological Carrier for Targeting Colorectal Cancer

Bacterial ghosts (BGs) are non-deformed bacterial cell envelopes that possess undamaged external configurations for precise attachment to different cells of the human body. The Escherichia coli BGs were successfully produced using a modified sponge-like reduced protocol and characterized by SEM. Four different concentrations of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) were used to study the impact on the "ghosts" cell wall. 5-FU was then loaded into the BGs and the loading capacity (LC %) and entrapment efficiency (EE %) were determined and were found to be 38.3 ± 0.8 and 76.6 ± 0.8, respectively. The in vitro release studies were conducted in dialysis bags over a time period of 16 days and the accumulative 5-FU released (%) was calculated. Overall, 69.2% of the ghost-associated 5-FU was released from the BGs and release from the E. coli ghosts is governed by non-Fickian diffusion. The Caco-2 cell line was used to investigate the cytotoxicity of 5-FU-loaded BGs.