Co-delivery liposomes of irinotecan hydrochloride and curcumin in the synergistic treatment of colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) stands out as the most prevalent and deadliest malignant tumour within the digestive system. Despite being the first -line chemotherapy for advanced or metastatic CRC, Irinotecan (IRI) faces limitations due to its unstable structure, short half-life and low conversion efficiency. In this work, we prepared IRI and Curcumin (CUR) co -delivery liposomes (CoIRI/CUR Lipo) by using CUR as a sensitizer to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of IRI for CRC. The results of experiments in vitro demonstrated that CoIRI/CUR Lipo effectively co -delivered both drugs to tumour cells at synergistic ratios and steadily released. Additionally, CUR promoted the conversion of IRI into its active metabolite 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN-38) and increased the targets of SN-38 by upregulating the expression of Carboxylesterase 2 (CSE 2) and Topoisomerase I (Top I) at the tumour cells, thereby enhancing the proliferation inhibition on SW620 cells. In vivo, antitumor studies demonstrated that CoIRI/CUR Lipo exhibited a strong antitumor effect, with a tumour inhibition rate of 94.43 %.