Improved drug delivery system for cancer treatment by D-glucose conjugation with eugenol from natural product

Introduction: Bioconjugations are swiftly progressing and are being applied to solve several limitations of conventional drug delivery systems (DDS) such as lack of water solubility, non-specific, and poor bioavailability. The main goals of DDS are to achieve greater drug effectiveness and minimize toxicity to the healthy tissues.

Objectives: In this study, D-glucose was conjugated with eugenol to target the cancer cells. To identify the implication of the anticancer effect, osteosarcoma (K7M2) cells were cultured and the anti-proliferative effect was performed using MTT [3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide assay] test in order to evaluate the viability and toxicity on cells with various concentrations of eugenol and D-glucose-eugenol conjugate in 24-hour incubation.

Results: It was found that, the successful confirmation of the conjugation between D-glucose and eugenol was obtained by 1 H NMR spectroscopy. MTT assay showed inhibitory concentration (IC50 value) of D-glucose-eugenol was at 96.2 µg/ml and the decreased of osteosarcoma cell survival was 48%.

Conclusion: These findings strongly indicate that K7M2 cells would be affected by toxicity of D-glucose-eugenol. Therefore, the present study suggests that D-glucose-eugenol has high potential to act as an anti-proliferative agent who may promise a new modality or approach as the drug delivery treatment for cancer or chemotherapeutic agent.

Keywords: Conjugation; D-glucose; Drug Delivery Systems (DDS); Eugenol; cancer treatment; osteosarcoma (K7M2)..