Pierfrancesco Morganti – University of Naples, Italy
Francesco Carezzi, Paola Del Ciotto, Gianluca Morganti – Mavi NanoScience Centre, Italy
Chitin nanoparticles as innovative delivery system
The need for innovative and biodegradable controlled delivery systems, as nanoparticulates, has been and is still today a necessity for continuously ameliorating the efficacy of drug and cosmetic products.1–4
It is still a challenge,
in fact, to develop new carriers and techniques that allow the delivery of active compounds through the skin layers and hair follicles, in a non-invasive way at sufficient concentration. Naturally, obvious benefits can arise from ingredients that, because of their natural structure, are not only biologically safe, but can also positively enhance the acceptability of human and environmental systems. Thus, there has been renewed interest for chitin, chitosan and chitin nanofibrils (CN) to be used in different industrial fields such as pharmaceutical, cosmetic, biotextile and food packaging.5,6
At this point, it is
important to underline the easy reparability in great quantities of chitin as a raw material, being a waste derivative of the fisheries industry produced at a level of one trillion tonnes per year.7–9
Thus, pure chitin is a naturally occurring biopolymer, i.e. a linear polysaccharide in which each residue is the fully acetylated N-acetyl-glucosamine. In contrast, its derivative, called chitosan, which also has a glucosamine residue, is deacetylated; that is, without acetyl groups attached to the residues. In any way, chitin is a copolymer between the fully acetylated and fully deacetylated polymers. Naturally, each of the sources of this natural product has different properties according to the proportion of these two polymer components, especially relating to their solubility and chemicophysical characteristics. Moreover, its purest form, named chitin nanofibrils (CN) (Fig. 1), being nanostructured as a crystal of 240 x 7 x 5 nm, has recently revealed to be more efficacious for cosmetic delivery, because of its cationic nature.10,11 Its relatively easy process of combination with other natural negatively charged ingredients, such as hyaluronic acid (HA) and alginate families, has led to the development of new delivery systems
Film-forming property
Synergistic adjuvant for many molecules
Figure 1: Chitin nanofibrils’ properties.
based on the production of CN-block co- polymers’ nanoparticles. In these innovative systems, pharmaceutically or cosmetically active molecules can be easily entrapped and then subsequently released within the skin and mucous membranes, at appropriate sites or under appropriate conditions, without any harmful side effects (Fig. 2). The easy degradability of these nanoparticles and the ability to be fabricated in a variety of forms, such as gels and fibres or porous matrices, gave rise to research projects to produce biomedical tissue-non-tissue or nanocomposite films for medical purposes and food packaging. Thus the high biocompatibility of CN as nanoparticles resulted in positive effects on wound healing12,13
and also the similarity between
the molecular structure of CN and hyaluronic acid (HA) (Fig. 3) has led to the production of the co-polymer CN-CN,
entrapping water and different active ingredients, to be used as a moisturising and skin barrier-repairing compound14,15 or anti-ageing agent.16,17
In any case, it
appears that the combination of intrinsic biological activity with a high degradability and the ability to manufacture objects in a variety of different physical forms suggest that CN is attractive for a number of innovative medical technology applications and delivery systems.
Delivery systems
In a typical procedure we fabricated skin- compatible nano particles entrapping lutein as an active ingredient by using the in situ precipitation and encapsulation procedure, as reported elsewhere.10,11 Basically, the process consists of the complexation that takes place between oppositely charged biopolymers, as CN is positively charged and HA is negatively
April 2012 PERSONAL CARE 95
Cationic polymer for delivery system
High biodegradability
Mucoadhesive property
Chitin nanofibrils
Permeation enhancer
Reperible from waste materials
Low toxicity 300 nm
DELIVERY SYSTEMS
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