Catanionic nanocarriers as a potential vehicle for insulin delivery

STAGNOLI, SOLEDAD; SOSA ALDERETE, LUCAS; LUNA, M. ALEJANDRA; AGOSTINI, ELIZABETH; FALCONE, R. DARIO; NIEBYLSKI, ANA M.; CORREA, N. MARIANO

COLLOIDS AND SURFACES B-BIOINTERFACES

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2020 vol. 188

0927-7765

Diabetes is a disease that affects millions of people in the World, constituting a global problem. Patients areadministered insulin subcutaneous injections, resulting in high costs and frequent infections in the injection site.A possible solution to this problem may be the use of nanotechnology.Nanotransporters can act as specific release systems able to overcome the current limitations to drug delivery.Liposomes and vesicles can deliver drugs directly and efficiently to the site of action, decreasing toxicity andadverse effects. In previous studies, we demonstrated the biocompatibility and safety of catanionic benzyl nhexadecyldimethylammonium 1,4 -bis-2-ethylhexylsulfosuccinate (BHD-AOT) vesicles using both in vitro and invivo tests. Thus, the aims of this work were to evaluate the ability of the BHD-AOT vesicles to encapsulate insulin;to analyze the structural properties and stability of the system, vesicle-Insulin (VIn), at different pH conditions;and to study the ability of VIn to decrease the glycemia in miceby different administration routes. Our resultsshowed that 2 and 5 mg mL−1 of vesicles were able to encapsulate about 55 % and 73 % of insulin, respectively.The system VIn showed a significant increase in size from 120 to 350 nm, changes in the surface zeta potentialvalue, and high stability to different pH conditions. A significant decrease of the glycemia after VIn administration was demonstrated in in vivo assays, including the oral route. Our results reveal that BHD-AOT vesiclesmay be an appropriate system to encapsulate and protect insulin, and may be a potential system to be administrated in different ways as an alternative strategy to conventional therapy.