Abstract
Ursolic acid (UA) is a triterpenoid extracted from various berries such as cranberries and apples. UA is used in tumor therapy due to its ability to induce apoptosis in various types of cancer cells including malignant ones such as leukemia, breast, lung, melanoma, and endometrial cancer. However, UA has poor solubility, but encapsulating it in peptide-based carriers such as an aromatic tripeptide, triphenylalanine (FFF), can enhance its solubility and targeting capabilities. Peptide-based carriers are a promising candidate for drug delivery to ease of synthesis via self-assembly, biocompatibility, biodegradability, and tunable chemical structures. For drug delivery applications, peptides offer advantages including non-immunogenicity, fast blood clearance, and efficient tumoral diffusion due to low molecular weight. In the presence ofa targeting molecule, these carriers can be specifically targeted for the destruction of colon adenocarcinomas. Electro spraying was used as the method to synthesize the nanospheres to establish efficient delivery of antitumor drugs to specific target tumors. The hollow structured FFF nanospheres were electro sprayed with UA in a core-shell structure after establishing the technical conditions to create stable nanospheres that will avoid metabolism but ready to disintegrate and release the UA agent at the targeted tumor location. Simple targeting peptides such as arginine-glycine-aspartic acid were used as the targeting molecules in this study. The structures were analyzed using scanning and transmission electron microscopy, infrared and mass spectroscopy. The rate of UA release was analyzed in solution and their anti-tumor effects were analyzed in colon adenocarcinoma cell lines in vitro.