Nanotransporters for the release of bioactive molecules

In this project, the nanoformulation of plant extracts in phospholipid vesicles was performed to improve phytochemicals’ applicability in potential skin products. In recent years, the scientific community and pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries gave much attention to plant-derived products with active ingredients. The antioxidant, antibacterial, wound healing, anti-ageing, sun protection, and anti-inflammatory activities are some of their properties highlighted for topical application. Despite this, plant compounds present some drawbacks related to their poor solubility, instability, reduced skin permeation, and low skin retention time, which strongly restrict their topical application. Nanotechnology emerges as an innovative strategy to tackle these limitations: by manipulating materials and reducing their size at the nanometer scale, new structures able to incorporate different active molecules are produced. Nanocarrier-based delivery preserves biomolecules from degradation and increases their bioavailability, at the same time. In this project, the plant material was obtained through alcoholic extractions of different parts of some common plants. Their incorporation in phospholipid vesicles was carried out by a simple sonication of extracts and phospholipids in dispersant solutions. To verify that the nanoformulations had optimal features for skin delivery, a deep characterization was performed, in terms of size, surface charge, sample homogeneity, shape, degree of lamellarity, and entrapment efficiency of the main compounds characteristic of each extract. Their biocompatibility was assayed with different skin cell lines as well as their antioxidant potential. Our results suggest that phospholipid vesicles incorporating plant extracts could be good candidates for topical delivery.