A green and facile preparation approach, licochalcone A capped on hollow gold nanoparticles, for improving the solubility and dissolution of anticancer natural product.

This study described a valuable drug delivery system for poorly water-soluble anticancer naturalproduct, licochalcone A, isolated from Glycyrrhiza inflata, loaded on hollow gold nanoparticles by green method to improve solubility and dissolution and maintain its natural pharmacological property. Briefly, the formation of hollow gold nanoparticles involves three steps: preparing of silica nanospheres by Stober method, forming of a thick gold shell around the silica templates and etching of silica particles by HF solution. Hollow gold nanoparticles (HGNPs) and drug loaded hollow gold nanoparticles (L-HGNPs) displayed spherical structure and approximately 200nm in size observed by SEM, XRD, EDS and DSC analysis showed that HGNPs were gold hollow structure and crystalline form. The solubility in aqueous solution of licochalcone A was increased obviously to 488.9 μg/ml, compared with free drugs of 136.1 μg/ml. Another interesting finding is that near-infrared (NIR) irradiation increased the speed of solubility of licochalcone A in aqueous solutions, rather than quantity. In short, the method of nano-delivery system combined with poorly water-soluble drug to improve its solubility and dissolution is worth applying to other natural products in order to increase their opportunities in clinical applications.