Folate-conjugated albumin nanoparticles for rheumatoid arthritis-targeted delivery of etoricoxib
Authors: Ashish Kumar Jain
Upasana Bilthariya
Nivrati Jain
Vaibhav Rajoriya
Journal: Drug development and industrial pharmacy (2015)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: Activated macrophages targeting; etoricoxib; folate conjugation; inflammation screening; rheumatoid arthritis.
Affiliations: Pharmaceutics Devision, ADINA Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences , Sagar, Madhya Pradesh , India.

Abstract:  Objective: The present study discusses folic acid-etoricoxib-bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (F-ETX-NPs) using folic acid as an over expressed folate receptor ligand for activated macrophages in targeting of rheumatoid arthritis. Materials and methods: For this purpose etoricoxib-loaded BSA nanoparticles (ETX-NPs) were prepared by desolvation method and activated folic acid conjugation with free amine group of BSA was confirmed by FTIR study and zeta potential measurements. Results: The F-ETX-NPs showed spherical in shape with 215.8 ± 3.2 nm average size + 7.8 mV zeta potential, 72 ± 1.3% etoricoxib entrapment efficiency and showed 93.1 ± 2.2% cumulative etoricoxib release upto 72 h. The etoricoxib concentration from F-ETX-NPs was found to be 9.67 ± 0.34 µg/g in inflamed joint after 24 h administration revealed remarkably targeting potential to the activated macrophages cells and keep at a high level during the experiment. Discussion and conclusion: These results suggest that F-ETX-NPs are potentially vector for activated macrophages cells targeting of rheumatoid arthritis. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 Brought to my attention by a reader. Figure 2D. Three sets of panels appear to have a common area, i.e. TSCCA Blank, TSCCA OE, and Cal27 Scramble. The overlapping area is visible in DAPI, TUNEL, and merged panels, but I have only marked the merged panels here with aqua and lime boxes. ![file] , 
 Figure 3A. * Yellow boxes: The TSCCA p62 NC panel looks very similar to the CAL27 p62 RNAi panel. ![file] , 
 Figure 1B and Figure 4: * Red boxes: Three lanes in the GAPDH panel of Figure 1B look very similar to three lanes in the GAPDH panel at the bottom left of Figure 4. The two panels appear to be showing different samples. ![file] , 
 Supplementary table with primer sequences. Both Per2 primers listed here, presumably designed in this paper to fit the human Per2 gene since human cells were analyzed in this paper, does not appear to have any hit with Per2 genes or human genes. They do have perfect hits with genes from elephant seals, dolphins, and turtles, though. Both GAPDH primers, presumably designed in this paper to fit the human GAPDH gene since human cells were analyzed in this paper, does not appear to have any hit with GAPDH genes or human genes. They only appear to fit a gene called  Rattus rattus PDZ and LIM domain 3 (Pdlim3) Could the authors clarify on which genes these primers were designed? I just did a simple BLAST search, and later filtered for human sequences, without any hits. Maybe I am missing something obvious here. ![file] , 
 Figure 2D: Marked in yellow is a further region that appears similar between Cal27 Blank and Cal27 Scramble ![file] ,