Evaluation of suitable solvents for testing the anti-proliferative activity of triclosan - a hydrophobic drug in cell culture.

Triclosan, a broad spectrum antibiotic is currently being evaluated for its anti-cancer property. Though several solvents are available to dissolve lipophilic (hydrophobic) drugs, solubility and toxicity aspects pose a challenge, when combined with the cell culture medium. In this paper, we present a simple approach based on physico-chemical and biologic criteria to choose a suitable solubilizing agent to study the anti-proliferative property of triclosan in breast cancer cell line MCF-7. Triclosan was dissolved in five different solvents viz. DMSO, absolute ethanol, 1 N NaOH, 55% polyethylene glycol + 45% ethanol mixture (PEM) and acetone and diluted with the culture medium (1 mg/ml). Although triclosan dissolved completely in all five solvents, on dilution with culture medium, turbidity was observed in DMSO, 1 N NaOH and ethanol. Cell viability was 95.23% in 10 microl of acetone, when compared with 49.45% at the same volume of PEM. This non-toxic nature of acetone was supported by DNA fragmentation analysis and phase contrast microscopy. A significant decrease in cancer cell proliferation at 100 microg/ml of acetone-solubilized triclosan, compared with 100 microg/ml of PEM-solubilized triclosan (p<0.05) indicated stronger anti-proliferative effect and greater drug-sensitivity of triclosan when solubilized in acetone. Results showed that acetone-solubilized triclosan was suitable for anti-cancer investigations in cultured MCF-7 cells.