Drug Delivery and Translational Research - Featured Article: February 2023

Read the featured article from the February 2023 issue! (this opens in a new tab)  

Thymoquinone (TQ) is a quinone-based phenolic compound with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, but its therapeutic utility has been underexplored due to inadequate biological stability, short half-life, low hydrophilicity, and poor systemic bioavailability. Tamanu oil-stabilized nanostructured lipid carriers (TQ-NLCs) enriched with TQ were prepared and optimized using Box-Behnken design with the size of 153.9 ± 0.5 nm and surface charge of -30.7 mV. The encapsulation efficiency and drug loading density were found to be 84.6 ± 0.5 % and 14.8 ± 0.5 %, respectively. The TQ-NLCs assayed for skin permeation for transdermal delivery where TQ-NLC provided roughly 15 times greater permeation compared to aqueous solution of TQ. Tamanu oil displayed a synergistic anti-inflammatory potential with TQ in comparison to TQ alone in carrageenan-induced paw oedema model and Freund's adjuvant-induced arthritic model. The arthritic and X-ray scores significantly reduced in TQ-NLC-treated and standard formulation-treated groups. Moreover, serum pro-inflammatory TNF-α and IL-6 levels were significantly reduced in TQ-NLC-treated group compared to the arthritic control group.

Read the February 2023 issue here. (this opens in a new tab)