Preparation and Evaluation of Exosomes Loaded with Combined Drugs against Colon Cancer

Background: Nanoscale delivery systems such as milk exosomes, promising carriers for drug delivery, are used to deliver therapeutic drug molecules to the targeted organs. They possess characteristics that include low immunogenicity, specificity, and high bioavailability of cancer drugs. This research study unfolds the influence of the combination of phytoconstituents such as quercetin with an anticancer agent 5-fluoro uracil against the colon cancer cells HCT 116 and epithelial cells NCM 460 in vitro both individually and in combination when loaded into bovine exosomes. Materials and Methods: exosomes were isolated from a bovine source using the ultracentrifugation method and lyophilized. The selected drugs were loaded into exosomes by incubation, sonication, and freeze-thaw methods and morphologically characterized by SEM and zeta potential studies, FTIR studies, and in vitro diffusion studies. The study also highlights the in vitro cytotoxicity of the exosomal formulations Results: The particle size of the pure exosomes, Exo 5FU and Exo QCT, was determined by Zeta sizer to be 125.7 nm, 157.8, and 142.4 nm, respectively. Further, the mean particle size of (5-FU+QCT) combination-loaded exosomes was 115.8 nm. The freeze-thaw method shows the highest possibility of drug loading. The flux of the release study is almost constant, with a permeability constant of 0.138. Further, the cytotoxicity study showed that Exo-Quercetin has an IC50 value, which is much less than pure Quercetin