Standard chow pellet

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), Universiti Putra Malaysia, approved this study (reference number UPM/IACUC/AUP-R026/2014) and Canadian Council on Animal Care Guide to the Care and Use of Experimental Animals were followed. Female and male BALB/c mice of 20–30 g weight and age of 6–8 weeks were used in this study. They were housed individually in cages under standard laboratory conditions, with a period of 12-hour light/12-hour darkness cycle, at 20°C–24°C with 40%–50% relative humidity. The animals were acclimatized for 1 week before the actual experiment. They were fed with a standard chow pellet (Specialty Feeds, Glen Forrest, WA, Australia) and allowed to drink water ad libitum.

Healthy male Sprague Dawley rats (180–200 gm) were used for pharmacokinetics and biodistribution studies. Prior to experimentation, the animals were randomly divided into two groups for different routes of administration (oral and intravenous injection). They were housed in cages under standard laboratory conditions, with a period of 12-hr light/12-h darkness cycle, at 20°C–24°C with 40%–50% relative humidity. The animals were acclimatized for one week prior to the experiment. The rats were fed with standard chow pellet (Specialty Feeds, Glen Forrest, WA, Australia) and allowed to drink water ad libitum. Each group was further divided according to different time point (n=6). All the experimental procedures were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care of and Use Committee (IACUC), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM/IACUC/AUP-R085/2017) and followed Canadian Council on Animal Care Guide to the Care and Use of Experimental Animals.