Search

Oral transmucosal drug delivery is a non-invasive administration route for rapid therapeutic onset and greater bioavailability avoiding the first-pass metabolism. Mucoadhesive formulations are advantageous as they may retain the drug at the administration site. Proper equipment to assess mucoadhesive properties and corresponding drug absorption is fundamental for the development of novel drug delivery systems. Here we developed a new flow-through donor chamber for well-established diffusion cells, and we tested the effects on drug and formulation retention in situ of adding mucoadhesive polymers or mesoporous silica particles to a reference formulation. Mesoporous silica particles are of particular interest as they may be used to encapsulate and retain drug molecules. Compared to other ex-vivo methods described in literature for assessing mucoadhesive performance and transmucosal drug delivery, this new donor chamber provides several advantages: i) it reflects physiological conditions better as a realistic saliva flow can be provided over the administration site, ii) it is versatile since it can be mounted on any kind of vertical diffusion cell allowing simultaneous detection of drug retention at the administration site and drug permeation through the tissue, and iii) it enables optical quantification of formulations residence time aided by image processing. This new flow-through donor diffusion cell set-up proved sensitive to differentiate a reference formulation from one where 20 %(w/w) Carbomer was added (to further improve the mucoadhesive properties), with respect to both drug and formulation residence times. We also found that mesoporous silica particles, investigated as particles only and mixed together with the reference formulation, gave very similar drug and formulation retention to what we observed with the mucoadhesive Carbomer. However, after some time (>30 min) it became obvious that the tablet excipients in the reference formulation promote particle retention on the mucosa. This work provides a new simple and versatile biorelevant test for the evaluation of oral mucoadhesive formulations and paves the way for further studies on mesoporous silica particles as valuable excipients for enhancing oral mucoadhesion.

Cyclodextrins (CDs) and mesoporous silica particles (MSPs) have been combined as composite carriers for controlled antibiotic release. CDs were employed as "gatekeeper" agents and grafted onto MSPs to retain drug molecules inside the MSP carrier. A variety of CDs (unfunctionalized, positively charged and carboxymethylated) and three different coupling strategies (covalent binding, electrostatic adsorption and inclusion complexation) were systematically investigated for their ability to control the release of two antibiotic drugs, metronidazole and clofazimine. The drugs had significantly different physicochemical properties (metronidazole - small hydrophilic, clofazimine- large hydrophobic). We report for the first time on the encapsulation and characterization of metronidazole-loaded-MSP. Each CD coating strategy reduced the drug release rate in phosphate buffer compared to unmodified MSP (from 20% to 100% retained drug). Covalent binding and inclusion complex approaches were significantly more effective than electrostatically adsorbed CD. In particular, the novel inclusion complex based on host/guest interaction between benzyl-modified silica surface and α-CD proved to be very effective (60-100% retained drug amount). Using pharmaceutical manufacturing processes, our study shows that CD-MSP composites can retain both hydrophobic and hydrophilic antibiotic compounds with potential translation to triggered release formulation targeting bacterial infections in the colon and lower intestine.

We develop and combine a novel numerical model, within the Poisson-Boltzmann framework, with classical experimental titration techniques for mesoporous silica particles to study the charging behavior as both pH and the amount of monovalent salt are varied. One key finding is that these particles can be considered to have an effectively or apparent electroneutral inner core with an effectively charged rim. As a consequence, the total apparent charge of the particle is several orders of magnitude smaller than that of the bare silica charge, which accounts only for the charged silanol groups of the mesoporous silica particles and which has its major contribution from the interior. Hence, the interior dictates the mesoporous silicas' bare charge while the rim its effective charge. We furthermore report density, charge, and accumulated charge profiles across the particle's interface.

A mesoporous silica material prepared by using folic acid (FA) as a template enables the effective encapsulation of meso-tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl) porphyrin (TCPP) in its interior. Combination of steady-state and time-resolved absorption and emission spectroscopy demonstrate that FA and TCPP are released from the silica material to the aqueous phase in the form of a non-covalent assembly. This assembly does not form by simple mixing of the two components in the absence of silica, suggesting the key role of the material in the assembling process. The FA/TCPP assembly exhibits dual color fluorescence in the visible region, good photosensitization capability of singlet oxygen, and enhanced photo-induced mortality in KB cancer cells overexpressing folate receptor, if compared with the free components. QC 20170620

When applied to skin, particulate matter has been shown to accumulate in hair follicles. In addition to follicles, the skin topography also incorporates trench-like furrows where particles potentially can accumulate; however, the furrows have not been as thoroughly investigated in a drug delivery perspective. Depending on body site, the combined follicle orifices cover up to 10% of the skin surface, while furrows can easily cover 20%, reaching depths exceeding 25 µm. Hence, porous particles of appropriate size and porosity could serve as carriers for drugs to be released in the follicles prior to local or systemic absorption. In this paper, we combine multiphoton microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and Franz cell diffusion technology to investigate ex-vivo skin accumulation of mesoporous silica particles (average size of 400–600 nm, 2, and 7 µm, respectively), and the potential of which as vehicles for topical delivery of the broad-spectrum antibiotic metronidazole. We detected smaller particles (400–600 nm) in furrows at depths of about 25 µm, also after rinsing, while larger particles (7 µm) where located more superficially on the skin. This implies that appropriately sized porous particles may serve as valuable excipients in optimizing bioavailability of topical formulations. This work highlights the potential of skin furrows for topical drug delivery.

Amino-terminated mesoporous silica nanoparticles embedding carbon dots (MSCD) formed by calcination were functionalized with a nitric oxide (NO) photodonor (1) to give a robust MSCD-1 conjugate. The intense fluorescence of MSCDs was strongly quenched in MSCD-1 by effective energy transfer. Visible light excitation of MSCD-1 liberates NO, suppresses the energy transfer mechanism and leads to concomitant fluorescence restoration of the MSCD scaffold, which acts as an optical reporter for the released NO. The MSCD-1 hybrid is also able to encapsulate the highly hydrophobic photosensitizer temoporfin, preserving the fluorescence reporting function.

Three types of new label-free fluorescent mesoporous silica micro- and nanoparticles were prepared by controlled thermal decomposition of carboamino groups linked on the surface without compromising the drug loading capacity of the silica particles. Clofazimine, a lipophilic antibiotic drug with excellent in vitro activity against mycobacterium tuberculosis, was encapsulated inside these fluorescent particles to obtain multifunctional drug carriers of interest in the field of theranostics. The morphological features together with the photophysical properties of both powders and aqueous suspensions are described. The photophysical properties seem to be independent of the mesoporosity features but correlate with the residual carboamino functionalization. The particles are endowed with emission in the visible region and have fluorescence lifetimes of up to 9.0 ns that can be easily discriminated from intrinsic biological fluorescence. Furthermore, their fluorescence lifetime offers a promising tool to follow the release of the encapsulated drug which is not possible by means of simple fluorescence intensity. We report here a novel attractive theranostic platform enabling monitoring of drug release in biological environments by means of fluorescence lifetime. QC 20170530

We report on the encapsulation of the antibiotic clofazimine (CLZ) within the pores of mesoporous silica particles having hydrophilic (CBET value of 137) and more hydrophobic (CBET value of 94 after calcination at 600 °C) surfaces. We studied the effect of pH on the released amount of CLZ in aqueous solutions and observed a maximum at pH 4.1 in correlation with the solubility of the drug. Less release of the drug was observed from the more hydrophobic particles which was attributed to a difference in the affinity of the drug to the carrier particles. Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy, emission spectra, and fluorescence lifetimes of single drug loaded particles provided detailed understanding and new knowledge of the physical form of the encapsulated drug and the distribution within the particles. The distribution of CLZ within the particles was independent of the surface chemistry of the particles. The confirmation of CLZ molecules as monomers or aggregates was revealed by controlled removal of the drug with solvent. Additionally, the observed optical "halo effect" in the fluorescent images was interpreted in terms of specific quenching of high concentration of molecules. The emission lifetime experiments suggest stronger interaction of CLZ with the more hydrophobic particles, which is relevant to its release. The results reported in this work demonstrate that tuning the hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity of mesoporous silica particles can be used as a tool to control the release without impacting their loading ability.

Mesoporous silica materials are having an impact in traditional pharmaceutical applications and nanomedicine. As excipients, they are allowing the enhancement of poorly soluble drugs with significant improvements in solubility for a large variety of type II drug compounds. Synthetic and structural versatility allows to truly design both mesopore structure and mesopore size with great precision promising to allow for a library of standard materials that can deliver tailored pharmacokinetic release profiles. In this chapter, we highlight some of the important developments in the field of mesoporous materials focusing on early synthetic aspects as well as later functionalisation strategies. The characterisation methods that are employed commonly and may be used to facilitate production and quality assessment are also discussed. Finally, we update the reader with some brief examples of how these non-toxic and biocompatible vehicles are entering pharmaceutical applications.