Development of a Novel Red Clay-Based Drug Delivery Carrier to Improve the Therapeutic Efficacy of Acyclovir in the Treatment of Skin Cancer

Acyclovir (ACV) is a promising candidate for drug repurposing because of its potential to provide an effective treatment viral infections and non-viral diseases, such as cancer, which limited options exist. However, poor physicochemical properties limit application. This study aimed formulate evaluate ACV-loaded red clay nanodrug delivery system exhibiting cytotoxicity. The focused on the preparation complex between ACV (RC) using sucrose stearate (SS) (nanocomplex F1) immediate-release drug-delivery melanoma treatment. synthesized nanocomplex, had nanosized dimensions, negative zeta release approximately 85% after 3 h, was found be promising. Characterization techniques, including FT-IR, XRD DSC-TGA, confirmed encapsulation within nanocomplex stability due intercalation. Cytotoxicity experiments conducted cancer cell lines SK-MEL-3 revealed that from formulation F1 effectively inhibited growth cells, with IC50 25 ± 0.09 µg/mL. Additionally, demonstrated significant cytotoxicity at 20 µg/mL in line, indicating skin Based these findings, it can suggested RC-SS could carrier localized therapy. Furthermore, results silico addition chitosan more delivery. Energy interaction analyses various modules material studio high composite comprising clay, stearate, ACV. Thus, concluded utilization clay-based strategy improve effectiveness targeted