A novel aminoclay-curcumin hybrid for enhanced chemotherapy

Curcumin (Cur) has been demonstrated as an efficacious anti-tumor agent. However, its therapeutic applications are largely limited by its extremely low aqueous solubility, low stability and poor bioavailability. In this work, a simple one-pot synthesis was developed to fabricate a novel aminoclay-curcumin (AC-Cur) hybrid via the in situ loading of Cur over AC. The resultant hybrid was amenable to exfoliation and readily dispersible in aqueous media. Compared with free Cur, the AC-Cur hybrid displayed significantly enhanced solubility of Cur in both acidic and neutral environments, as well as enhanced stability of Cur in both neutral and alkaline environments. More importantly, this hybrid achieved a much better therapeutic effect than free Cur against various tumor cell lines, which was mainly attributed to its significantly improved solubility, stability and cellular uptake. Our results suggest that such an AC-Cur hybrid with high bioavailability can potentially be applied in nanomedicine for the treatment of malignant tumours.