44 PEPTIDES


Peptide delivery supporting skin resilience


Susana Rey, Alejandro Llamedo – INdermal by Nanovex Biotechnologies


Skin ageing is no longer understood solely as the appearance of wrinkles or loss of firmness, but as the progressive decline of the biological functions that allow the skin to maintain its structural integrity, adaptability and overall performance over time. While photoageing is mainly


associated with chronic ultraviolet- induced oxidative stress and inflammation, chronoageing reflects the intrinsic deterioration of the mechanisms responsible for maintaining tissue homeostasis and functional balance throughout life.1,2 For decades, cosmetic


approaches to ageing mainly focused on correcting visible signs such as wrinkles, loss of firmness or uneven texture. More recently, however, concepts such as skin longevity, slow- ageing and healthy ageing have progressively shifted this perspective toward preserving skin functionality over time. This evolution has placed increasing attention


on the concept of skin resilience, understood as the skin’s ability to preserve or recover its functional balance despite cumulative endogenous stress and age-related deterioration. Maintaining this adaptive capacity depends largely on the skin’s ability to continuously renew and reorganize its dermal structure throughout life. One of the key biological structures involved


in this process is the extracellular matrix (ECM). During chronoageing, the dermal matrix progressively loses its organization and renewal capacity, even in minimally photoexposed skin.2,3 Collagen fibres become fragmented and


mechanically disorganized, elastic fibres progressively lose functionality and matrix degradation gradually exceed matrix synthesis. As a consequence, fibroblasts lose mechanical tension and progressively adopt a less functional phenotype characterized by reduced biosynthetic activity and impaired communication with the surrounding matrix.4,5 These alterations affect not only skin


appearance, but also the skin’s ability to maintain its biomechanical properties and structural resilience over time. Maintaining efficient communication between cells and the extracellular matrix is therefore essential to preserve skin functionality, elasticity and adaptive capacity during ageing.


PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE July 2026 For this reason, cosmetic strategies


increasingly focus on combining biologically relevant actives with advanced delivery systems capable of improving their stability and functional interaction with viable skin compartments. Among these actives, peptides and growth


factors have attracted growing interest due to their ability to participate in cellular communication pathways involved in extracellular matrix organization and skin renewal. However, these biomolecules are often highly unstable in conventional formulations and can present limited penetration and bioavailability after topical application. In a recent article, it was reported that after


topical application of acetyl hexapeptide-8, a well-known peptide, only 0.22% of the applied peptide remained within the stratum corneum, while approximately 99.7% was removed from the skin surface, with no detectable peptide observed in the receptor solution, highlighting the limited penetration capacity of peptides in conventional formulations and the importance of optimized delivery systems to improve their functional skin bioavailability.6 Encapsulation technologies have therefore


emerged as a relevant approach to improve the functional performance of these fragile actives.


By protecting biomolecules from premature degradation and improving their localization within viable skin layers, delivery systems based on lipids help optimize their biological activity after topical application. This is especially relevant for


peptides and recombinant proteins such as epidermal growth factor (EGF), whose efficacy strongly depends on maintaining structural integrity and achieving efficient interaction with target skin cells. Maintaining this adaptive potential requires continuous communication between cells and their surrounding extracellular matrix through


biochemical and mechanical signalling pathways. Deformable liposomal systems


have attracted increasing attention due to their ability to improve the delivery and preservation of sensitive biomolecules while


maintaining good skin compatibility. In this work, we evaluate Vegan DDS EGF, a liposome-based encapsulation system designed to improve the stability and skin bioavailability of EGF in order to support extracellular matrix organization, skin resilience and biomechanical functionality during chronoageing. For simplicity, the system will hereafter be referred to as the encapsulated EGF delivery system or encapsulated EGF.


The extracellular matrix Within the dermis, cells are embedded in a highly organized three-dimensional environment known as the extracellular matrix (ECM).7,8


Rather than


acting as a passive scaffold, the ECM constitutes a dynamic biological network that continuously regulates tissue organization, mechanical behaviour and cellular communication.9 ECM contributes directly to skin firmness,


elasticity and recovery capacity while also participating in hydration balance, nutrient diffusion and tissue remodelling processes.10,11 Structurally, it is composed of two main elements. The first is the ground substance, a hydrated


gel-like environment rich in glycosaminoglycans, proteoglycans and adhesion glycoproteins involved in hydration and intercellular signalling.8 The second major component consists of structural proteins, particularly collagen and elastin fibres, which collectively determine the biomechanical properties of the skin.12


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