Anticancer effect of gemcitabine combined with 5-flurouracil in microemulsion on the hct-116 colon cancer cells

Combination therapies of chemotherapeutic agents in nanoparticelsare promising strategy in releasing the drugs selectively into the targeted tissues and cells. 5-Flurouracil (5-FU) and Gemcitabine (GEM) are antimetabolites used as anticancer drugs. In this study, the antitumor activity of the combination of GEM and 5- FU encapsulated in a micro emulsion (ME) was in vitro evaluated in HCT- 116 colon cancer cells. The inhibition of cell growth was examined by the 3-(4,5­dimethyl) ethiazole (MTT) assay. The mechanism of cell death was determined by observing the morphological changes of treated cells under light microscope, identifying apoptosis by using ApopNexin apoptosis detection kit, and viewing the morphological changes in the chromatin structure stained with 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) under the inverted fluorescence microscope. It has been found that combining 25µM of 5-FU with 5µM of GEM in a ME formula (5GEM/25FU-ME) has enhanced the cytotoxicity of 5GEM-ME and preserved the strong cytotoxicity of 25FU-ME against HCT-116 cells. The current study proved that formulating GEM with 5-FU in ME has improved the therapeutic potential of GEM and 5-FU as anticancer drugs.