Design and characterization of lipid nanoparticles for an effective topical administration of active compounds

Fátima Cristina Romão Vieira Pinto

Key information

Authors:

Fátima Cristina Romão Vieira Pinto (Fátima Cristina Romão Vieira Pinto)

Supervisors:

Luís Joaquim Pina da Fonseca (Luís Joaquim Pina da Fonseca); Dragana Popovic Correia de Barros (Dragana Popovic Correia de Barros)

Published in

10/10/2018

Abstract

New formulations of lipid nanoparticles composed by bioactive ingredients, as vegetable oils and loaded with lipophilic active compounds, as topical vitamins and retinoids were designed, optimized and produced by the miniemulsions methodology. Solid lipid nanoparticles and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) were successfully formulated regarding their particle size and electrostatic stability using respectively coconut and sunflower oils. Both nanocarrier types demonstrated high efficiency to encapsulate β-carotene and retinyl palmitate (RP), respectively. The optimization of NLCs formulations was further developed using sunflower, sweet almond, olive and coconut oils regarding the effect of essential production parameters as the lipids composition and proportion, the solid lipid chain length and the type of surfactant on their physicochemical properties. These formulations with each vegetable oil were enriched with α-tocopherol (TOC), which is recognized as a powerful antioxidant and proved to exhibit high encapsulation efficiencies and drug loading capacities, good antioxidant activities, a well-controlled release of TOC and the ability to be incorporated in long-term stable dermal products.