Anti-inflammatory activity of injectable dexamethasone acetate-loaded nanostructured lipid carriers

作者:Xu, Xuefan; Zhao, Chunyan; Yang, Hongyun; Jian, Yanlin; Zhang, Zhirong; Huang, Yuan*
来源:Drug Delivery, 2011, 18(7): 485-492.
DOI:10.3109/10717544.2011.589087

摘要

This work studied the intravenous injection formulation of nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) loaded with dexamethasone acetate (DA), a poorly water-soluble drug. The goal of this study was to design nanoparticles which could improve therapeutic efficacy of DA on inflammations. Based on the optimized results of single-factor screening experiment, DA-loaded NLCs (DA-NLCs) prepared by an emulsification-ultrasound method were found to be relatively uniform in size (178 +/- 4 nm) with a negative zeta potential (-38 +/- 4 mV). The average drug entrapment efficiency was 91 +/- 3 %. In vitro release tests indicated DA-NLCs possessed a sustained release characteristic and the accumulative release percentage was near 80 % at 23 h. DA-NLCs exhibited an average peak concentration of DA (7.6 mu g/ml) in the pleural exudate after intravenous administration to an experimental model of.-carrageenan-induced pleuritis rats, which was 8.3 times higher than that of free DA (0.9 mu g/ml). The.-carrageenan-induced edema test showed that the anti-acute inflammatory activity of DA-NLCs was stronger than that of free drug at the same drug concentration (P<0.05). In addition, biodistribution results clearly indicated that DA-NLCs preferentially accumulated in mice livers and lungs after intravenous injection. These results revealed that injectable NLCs may serve as a promising carrier for DA, greatly enhancing the selective effect on inflammatory sites, reducing systematic side effects and may be a potential carrier to increase therapeutic efficacy on inflammatory diseases.