Preparation and evaluation of nanovesicles containing an anti-cancer herbal drug / Yasmeen Nader Mohamed Ezzeldeen ; Supervised Aliaa Nabil Ahmed Elmeshad , Shady Aly Swidan Elkhouriby

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Pharmaceutics

Honokiol (HK) is a bioactive natural compound with proven antineoplastic properties against melanoma. However, HK shows very low bioavailabilitywhen administered orally. Alternatively, topical administration may offer a promising route, but is still challenging owing to the presence of physiological barriers, which are: the stratum corneum, the anomalous tumor microenvironment (TME) and itsinterstitial matrix. Herein, our objective was to fabricate HK loaded transfersomes (HKT) to enhance the HK bioavailability and to overcome these barriers and to enhance the topical drug delivery for melanoma treatment. Transfersomes (TFs) were prepared using the modified scalable heating method without using any organic solvents. The influence of the three fabrication variables: the loading drug amount, the stirring speed, and the speed of homogenization on the transfersomal particle size (PS), polydispersity index (PDI), zeta potential (ZP) and HK entrapment efficiency (EE) were assessed. It was found that the speed of homogenization exhibited a significant effect on the PS, PDI, ZP, and HK EE; while the stirring speed revealed a significant effect on the PS; and the loading drug amount affected the PDI and the HK EE. Surface response optimization was applied for the three process factors in order to select the optimized formula that was successfully prepared showing a small mean PS, a highly negative surface charge , and a high EE .

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