Coating carboxymethylpachymaran (CMP) on bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles for the encapsulation and oral delivery of curcumin

Curcumin is a hydrophobic substance with various beneficial biological activities. Its weak solubility and instability, however, now restrict its usage as a functional food. Herein, the purpose of this work is to fabricate curcumin-loaded bovine serum albumin/carboxymethylpachymaran nanoparticles (BMCNPs) to overcome these challenges. Under optimal conditions, the BMCNPs were spherically shaped with a surface charge of −31.4 mV, polydispersity index of 0.16 and particle size of 158.3 nm were characterized by electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. The interactions between curcumin, bovine serum albumin (BSA), and carboxymethylpachymaran (CMP) were investigated. The BMCNPs had a much better curcumin encapsulation efficiency (74.1%) as well as strong antioxidant activity, storage stability, and ionic strength tolerance. The in vitro release revealed that curcumin was more successfully sustained in the small intestine stage (68.7%) and that BMCNPs were able to prevent it from releasing too early in the stomach (21.4%). Not to mention, the results of the cytotoxicity test performed on the HT-29 and IEC-6 cell lines demonstrated the acceptable biocompatibility of BMCNPs.