Comparison study of the effect of alkyl-modified and unmodified PAMAM and PPI dendrimers on solubility and antitumor activity of crocetin.

Poor water solubility of hydrophobic drugs is one of the major problems in pharmaceutical sciences. Herein, in order to address the poor solubility of crocetin, the 30% of primary amines of PAMAM G4 and PPI G4 were alkylated and evaluated as drug delivery vectors. According to the results, this modification could improve the drug delivery efficiency in term of drug solubility, release pattern and cytotoxicity; however, the encapsulation yield was decreased. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the designed alkylated dendrimers are able to improve the drug delivery efficiency, may be through improving the solubility and cellular uptake of crocetin.