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Rehman M, Ihsan A, Madni A, et al. Int J Nanomedicine. 2017;12:8325–8336. The authors have advised Figure 3 on page 8332 is incorrect. An error was made in the labelling of the images with some FLOM samples incorrectly labelled as FLOD samples. The authors inadvertently selected a mislabelled FLOM sample to represent the FLOD sample without realising both the FLOM and FLOD images were the same. The correct Figure 3 is shown below. Figure 3 TEM images of (A) FLOM, (B) FLOD, (C) FLLM and (D) FLLD. Abbreviations: TEM, transmission electron microscopy; FLOM, 5-FU-loaded lauric acid and oleic acid nanoparticles prepared with mono-surfactant system; FLOD, 5-FU-loaded lauric acid and oleic acid nanoparticles prepared with double-surfactant system; FLLM, 5-FU-loaded lauric acid and linoleic acid nanoparticles prepared with mono-surfactant system; FLLD, 5-FU-loaded lauric acid and linoleic acid nanoparticles prepared with double-surfactant system; 5-FU, 5-fluorouracil. The authors apologize for this error and advise that this does not affect the results of the paper. Read the original article

Mubashar Rehman,1–3 Ayesha Ihsan,2 Asadullah Madni,1 Sadia Zafar Bajwa,2 Di Shi,3 Thomas J Webster,3,4 Waheed S Khan2 1Department of Pharmacy, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan; 2Nanobiotech Group, National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan; 3Department of Chemical Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA; 4Center of Excellence for Advanced Materials Research, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Abstract: Thermoresponsive drug delivery systems are designed for the controlled and targeted release of therapeutic payload. These systems exploit hyperthermic tempera­tures (>39°C), which may be applied by some external means or due to an encountered symptom in inflammatory diseases such as cancer and arthritis. The objective of this paper was to provide some solid evidence in support of the hypothesis that solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) can be used for thermoresponsive targeting by undergoing solid–liquid phase transition at their melting point (MP). Thermoresponsive lipid mixtures were prepared by mixing solid and liquid natural fatty acids, and their MP was measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). SLNs (MP 39°C) containing 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) were synthesized by hot melt encapsulation method, and were found to have spherical shape (transmission electron microscopy studies), desirable size (90% drug was released at 39°C after 5hours, suggesting that the SLNs show thermoresponsive drug release, thus confirming our hypothesis. Drug release from SLNs at 39°C was similar to oleic acid and linoleic acid nanoemulsions used in this study, which further confirmed that thermoresponsive drug release is due to solid–liquid phase transition. Next, a differential pulse voltammetry-based electrochemical chemical detection method was developed for quick and real-time analysis of 5-FU release, which also confirmed thermoresponsive drug release behavior of SLNs. Blank SLNs were found to be biocompatible with human gingival fibroblast cells, although 5-FU-loaded SLNs showed some cytotoxicity after 24hours. 5-FU-loaded SLNs showed thermoresponsive cytotoxicity to breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) as cytotoxicity was higher at 39°C (cell viability 72%–78%) compared to 37°C (cell viability >90%) within 1hour. In conclusion, this study presents SLNs as a safe, simple, and effective platform for thermoresponsive targeting. Keywords: temperature sensitive, breast cancer, 5-fluorouracil, nanostructured lipid carriers, emulsions, fatty acids

Farooq Aziz,1,2 Ayesha Ihsan,1 Aalia Nazir,2 Ishaq Ahmad,3 Sadia Zafar Bajwa,1 Asma Rehman,1 Abdoulaye Diallo,4 Waheed S Khan1 1Nanobiotechnology Group, National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, 2Department of Physics, Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, 3National Center for Physics, Quaid-I-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan; 4Laboratory of Photonics and Nano-Fabrication, Faculty of Science and Technology, Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar (UCAD), Dakar-Fann Dakar, Senegal Abstract: Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) with dimension in the range of 1–100nm have a prominent role in a number of biomedical applications like imaging, drug delivery, and cancer therapy owing to their unique optical features and biocompatibility. In this work, we report a novel technique for the synthesis of two types of GNPs namely porous gold nanoparticles (PGNPs) and solid gold nanoparticles (SGNPs). PGNPs of size 35nm were fabricated by reduction of gold (III) solution with lecithin followed by addition of L-ascorbic acid and tri-sodium citrate, whereas SGNPs with a dimension of 28nm were prepared by reflux method using lecithin as a single reducing agent. Comparative studies using PGNPs (λmax 560 nm) and SGNPs (λmax 548 nm) were conducted for evaluating their use as a contrast agent. These studies reveled that in direct computed tomography scan, PGNPs exhibited brighter contrast (45 HU) than SGNPs (26 HU). To investigate the effect of PGNPs and SGNPs on the liver and kidney profile, male rabbits were intravenously injected with an equal dose of 1mg/kg weight of PGNPs and SGNPs. The effect on biochemical parameters was evaluated 72 hours after intravenous (IV) injection including liver function profile, renal (kidney) function biomarker, random blood glucose value, and cholesterol level. During one comparison of contrast in CT scan, PGNPs showed significantly enhanced contrast in whole-rabbit and organ CT scan as compared to SGNPs 6 hours after injection. Our findings suggested that the novel PGNPs enhance CT scan image with higher efficacy as compared to SGNPs. The results showed that IV administration of synthesized PGNPs increases the levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphate (ALP), serum creatinine, and blood glucose, whereas that of SGNPs increases the levels of AST, ALP, and blood glucose. Keywords: porous gold nanoparticles, solid gold nanoparticles, CT scan, contrast agent, liver function test, renal function test

Mubashar Rehman,1 Asadullah Madni,1 Ayesha Ihsan,2 Waheed Samraiz Khan,2 Muhammad Imran Khan,1 Muhammad Ahmad Mahmood,1 Muhammad Ashfaq,1 Sadia Zafar Bajwa,2 Imran Shakir31Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy and Alternative Medicine, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan; 2Nanobiotechnology Group, Industrial Biotechnology Division, National Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, Pakistan; 3Sustainable Energy Technologies (SET) centre, College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi ArabiaAbstract: Binary fatty acid mixture-based solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) were prepared for delivery of diacerein, a novel disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug, with and without simultaneously loaded gold nanoparticles (GNPs). In order to optimize SLNs for temperature-responsive release, lipid mixtures were prepared using different ratios of solid (stearic acid or lauric acid) and liquid (oleic acid) fatty acids. SLNs were prepared by microemulsification (53 nm), hot melt encapsulation (10.4 nm), and a solvent emulsification-evaporation technique (7.8 nm). The physicochemical characteristics of SLNs were studied by Zetasizer, Fourier transform infrared, and X-ray diffraction analysis. High encapsulation of diacerein was achieved with diacerein-loaded and simultaneously GNP-diacerein-loaded SLNs. In vitro dissolution studies revealed a sustained release pattern for diacerein over 72 hours for diacerein-loaded SLNs and 12 hours for GNP-diacerein-loaded SLNs. An increase in diacerein payload increased the release time of diacerein while GNPs decreased it. In addition, rapid release of diacerein over 4 hours was observed at 40°C (melting point of optimized fatty acid mixture), demonstrating that these binary SLNs could be used for thermoresponsive drug delivery. Kinetic modeling indicated that drug release followed zero order and Higuchi diffusion models (R2>0.9), while the Korsmeyer-Peppas model predicted a diffusion release mechanism (n