Therapeutic Efficacy of Quercetin Versus Its Encapsulated Nanoparticle on Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cell Line

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common oral cavity carcinoma. Conventional therapeutic modalities for oral malignancy include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy alone or in combinations. The major obstacle of using current anticancer drugs is; first the non-specific tissue distribution, as these drugs are unable to distinguish between normal and cancer cells. Quercetin is a bioactive flavonoid having strong antioxidant properties. It is naturally present in a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Among all the nanomaterials, polymeric nanoparticles are of significant interest for drug delivery applications due to many unique features of nanoparticle polymers. Polymeric nanocarriers have been fabricated from natural and synthetic polymers. Poly ethylene glycol-poly lactide-co-glycolic acid (PEG-PLGA) amphiphilic copolymer is an emergent system because it can be easily synthesized and possesses a lot of good qualities. Several previous in vitro and in vivo studies have evaluated the cytotoxic effects of quercetin and have revealed that it decreases cell viability and increases cell apoptotic rate in OSCC. However, the anti-cancer property of quercetin in tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) has not been studied yet. This is the first study to investigate the anticancer effects of (Quercetin) either free or encapsulated by PLGA-PEG NPs in tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC) cell line.