Curcumin is more soluble in ethanol, dimethylsulfoxide, methanol and acetone than in water. In this study, nanocurcumin combined with 8 mT AC static magnetic field was used to enhance cellular uptake, bioavailability, and ultimate efficiency of curcumin against prostate cancer cell line (PC3), four bacteria strains (two Gram positive: Micrococcus luteus ATCC 9341, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 29213 and two Gram negative: Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853), mammalian cell line (HEK) and human erythrocytes (RBC). The efficiency (E%) between IC50 of nanocurcumin combined with magnetic field (NANOCUR-MF) and control against PC3 was 35.93%, which is three times higher compared to curcumin combined with magnetic field (CUR-MF); i.e., 10.77%. However, their E% against HEK was not significant; 1.4% for NANOCUR-MF and 1.95% for CUR-MF. Moreover, depending in minimum bacterial concentration (MBC), the use of MF leads to a reduction of MBCs for all tested bacteria compared with control. The obtained results established the applicability of (MF) in enhancing cellular uptake for PC3 and tested bacteria strains by increasing the penetration of drug (nanocurcumin and parent curcumin) into cell with fixing mild cytotoxic profile for HEK and RBC.
* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.