Fabrication of particles from tea polyphenol extract for anticancer activity

Abstract

Tea polyphenols, compounds expressed in various tea (Camellia sinensis) leaves, possess powerful antioxidant and anti-camcer activities. Nevertheless, more cytotoxicity to cancer cells with safety to normal cells of the tea polyphenols is needed for greater potential in cancer treatment. In this work, we have synthesized the oolong tea polymerized polyphenol (P-OTE) particles from the oolong tea polyphenol extract (OTE). The obtained particles are water dispersible and can entrap hydrophobic drugs such as paclitaxel (PTX) and xanthone. The P-OTE particles are spherical with size of 250±5 nm. PTX and xanthone can be loaded onto the particles at approximately 30% and 27% (w/w) loading content, respectively. The PTX-loaded P-OTE particles disperse well in water. The PTX-loaded P-OTE particles show excellently improved anticancer activity against lung cancer (A549) cell line as compared to the unencapsulated PTX, i.e., the IC50 value of < 0.02 μg/l for the entrapped PTX as compared with the IC50 value of 0.18 μg/l for the unentrapped PTX in DMSO.