In this study, following encapsulation of ellagic acid (EA), an anti-cancer agent, loaded in schizophyllan (EA/SPG-NP) and chitin (EA/Ch-NP) nanoparticles, its release in 95% ethanol, and different mediums of digestive systems with pH ranging 1.5 to 7.4, were examined before investigating for treatment of breast cancer MCF-7cells. Following synthesis, the EA was characterized by FT-IR, SEM, XRD, DLS and zeta potential analysis. Loading capacity of schizophyllan and chitin were 30.08 and 79.52%, respectively, while SEM images indicated respective size distributions of 217.8 and 39.82 nm, with the corresponding zeta potentials being +27 and −9.14 mV. As EA was loaded in nanoparticles, antioxidant activity, examined by DPPH method, of the free EA was found to be higher than both EA/SPG-NP and EA/Ch-NP, but lower than the latter at 7.4 pH. Interestingly, scavenging activities for EA and EA/SPG-NP reduced for higher pH. The MTT cytotoxicity indicated that EA/SPG-NP and EA/Ch-NP inhibited effectively cell growth of breast cancer cell lines at IC50 of 60 and 115 μg/ml, respectively.

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