Fabrication of poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid)/mesoporous silica composite nanofibers for controllable co-delivery of 5-fluorouracil and curcumin against HT-29 colon cancer cells

A combination strategy using two or more chemotherapeutic drugs has been regarded to reduce the drug dosage and provide an efficient simultaneous therapeutic impact in the treatment of cancer. Herein, an efficient dual-drug-loaded nanocarrier was developed based on the poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA)/mesoporous silica composite nanofibers (NFs) for the simultaneous co-encapsulation and sustained release of one hydrophobic and one hydrophilic chemotherapeutic drug. In this study, amine-functionalized mesoporous silica nanoparticles were selected for loading of the hydrophilic typical drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and hydrophobic typical drug curcumin (CUR), respectively, denoted as 5-FU@MSNs and CUR@MSNs. Two types of drug-loaded MSNs were then simultaneously integrated into the PLGA polymeric medium to produce a fibrous framework through the blending electrospinning process, which results in a dual-drug-loaded nanofibrous structure, PLGA/5-FU@MSNs/CUR@MSNs. The fabricated composite NFs were analyzed by various techniques, and the findings showed that both the two types of drug-loaded MSNs were effectively integrated into electrospun PLGA NFs. According to the in vitro release assay, the preloaded-5-FU and -CUR displayed prolonged and regulated release activity from the dual-drug-loaded composite NFs. The drug release mechanism from composite NFs was followed by the Fickian transport. Besides, compared to the single-drug-loaded NFs, the fabricated dual-drug-loaded PLGA composite NFs demonstrated a higher efficacy for suppressing HT-29 cells in vitro. Our findings indicate that these dual-drug-loaded composite nanofibrous scaffolds have potential applications for cancer therapy.