The results of a new study “holds promising potential in the transdermal delivery of CBD for melanoma therapy and offers a facile tool for transdermal therapies of skin tumors.”
Published in the journal Biomaterials Research, the study was conducted by researchers at the Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine and the Jiangsu Province Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
“Conventional dissolving microneedles (DMNs) face significant challenges in anti-melanoma therapy due to the lack of active thrust to achieve efficient transdermal drug delivery and intra-tumoral penetration”, states the study’s authors. “In this study, the effervescent cannabidiol solid dispersion-doped dissolving microneedles (Ef/CBD-SD@DMNs) composed of the combined effervescent components (CaCO3 & NaHCO3) and CBD-based solid dispersion (CBD-SD) were facilely fabricated by the “one-step micro-molding” method for boosted transdermal and tumoral delivery of cannabidiol (CBD).”
Upon pressing into the skin, “Ef/CBD-SD@DMNs rapidly produce CO2 bubbles through proton elimination, significantly enhancing the skin permeation and tumoral penetration of CBD.”
Once reaching the tumors, “Ef/CBD-SD@DMNs can activate transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) to increase Ca2+ influx and inhibit the downstream NFATc1-ATF3 signal to induce cell apoptosis.”
Additionally, “Ef/CBD-SD@DMNs raise intra-tumoral pH environment to trigger the engineering of the tumor microenvironment (TME), including the M1 polarization of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and increase of T cells infiltration.”
Researchers say that the “introduction of Ca2+ can not only amplify the effervescent effect but also provide sufficient Ca2+ with CBD to potentiate the anti-melanoma efficacy. Such a “one stone, two birds” strategy combines the advantages of effervescent effects on transdermal delivery and TME regulation, creating favorable therapeutic conditions for CBD to obtain stronger inhibition of melanoma growth in vitro and in vivo.”
Researchers conclude by stating that “This study holds promising potential in the transdermal delivery of CBD for melanoma therapy and offers a facile tool for transdermal therapies of skin tumors.”
