Despite various treatment strategies employed thus far, malignant melanoma usually resists most of the interventions. The present work is an attempt to synthesize liposomes encapsulating vitamin D, evaluate their physicochemical properties, evaluate the release kinetics of vitamin D, and examine the cytotoxicity of both liposomal and free vitamin D on melanoma cells in vitro. The analysis revealed that the zero-order model exhibited the best correlation (0.998) at acidic pH (5.5), indicating the most efficient vitamin D release from the nanoparticles. The results indicated that the IC50 values for cancer cells exposed to vitamin D-containing liposomes were 35.08 and 28.96 μg/mL after 24-48 h. Compared to those treated with free vitamin D, flow cytometry results further demonstrated a higher apoptosis in B16 F10 cells exposed to vitamin D-containing liposomes. Moreover, vitamin D-containing liposomes induced the most significant nanomechanical alterations, with the most pronounced decrease in the expression of the PI3K/AKT1 gene observed in the liposomal vitamin D treatment group.
Keywords: B16 F10 cells; apoptosis; atomic force microscope (AFM); kinetic modeling; liposomes; vitamin D.
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