Pectosomes and Chitosomes as Delivery Systems for Metronidazole: The One-Pot Preparation Method

Pharmaceutics

Toril Andersen³  ៞ljka Vanić²  Gøril Eide Flaten³  Sofia Mattsson¹  Ingunn Tho³ 

[1] Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Umeå University, Umeå SE-90185, Sweden; E-Mail:;Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Zagreb, Zagreb 10000, Croatia; E-Mail:;Drug Transport and Delivery Research Group, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Tromsø, Tromsø 9037, Norway; E-Mails:

关键词: liposomes;    pectosomes;    chitosomes;    metronidazole;    mucoadhesion;    polymer-coating;    vaginal therapy;   

DOI  :  10.3390/pharmaceutics5030445

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Mucoadhesive liposomes offer a potential for improved residence time of liposomal systems targeting contact with mucosal tissues, such as in buccal, oral, colon, and vaginal drug delivery. Most of the currently available methods rely on the coating of preformed liposomes by various mucoadhesive polymers. The aim of this study was to develop novel mucoadhesive system by the one-pot preparation method. The pectin- and chitosan-containing liposomes, namely pectosomes and chitosomes, were prepared by the modified solvent injection method. In order to optimize this novel delivery system, we used pectins and chitosans of both high and low degree of esterification/deacetylation (DE/DD), respectively. Sonication was applied to reduce the original vesicle size. All vesicles were characterized for their size, zeta potential, metronidazole entrapment, and stability. Both pectosomes and chitosomes were found to entrap more metronidazole than conventional plain liposomes. Preliminary data indicate that the polymer is present on the liposomal surface, embedded within inner liposomal bilayers, and entrapped inside the aqueous compartment. The next step in the evaluation of this system is the testing of its mucoadhesiveness.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.