Effective encapsulation of curcumin in nanoparticles enabled by hydrogen bonding using flash nanocomplexation.

Nanoparticular system of a model small molecular drug curcumin (CUR) was prepared using a novel method, namely, flash nanocomplexation by hydrogen bonding interactions. The CUR-loaded nanoparticles (NPs) were fabricated by mixing CUR, tannic acid and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) in aqueous solutions under turbulent condition through a three-inlet confined impinging jet (CIJ) device. Compared to bulk mixing, FNC has the advantage of scalability, reproducibility and without causing the variations by different mixing sequences. Three NPs with different drug loading levels were prepared by tuning the CUR feeding amount. In human prostate cancer PC3 cells, both cellular uptake and cytotoxicity of these NPs were negatively correlated with the drug loading level. These findings indicate that FNC is an easy and feasible method for small molecular drug delivery by hydrogen bonding interactions.