Search

Phycocyanin, produced by Spirulina platensis, has been reported as an anti-inflammatory, anti-hyperalgesia, antioxidant, anti-tumor, and anti-cancer agent. However, the ingestion of phycocyanin in the body is often hindered by its instability against gastric pH conditions. The nano-drug delivery system has developed as a promising platform for efficient drug delivery and improvement as well as drug efficacy. Bacterial cellulose nanocrystal (BCNC) has it superiority as DDS due to its inherent properties such as nanoscale dimension, large surface area, - biocompatibility, and non-toxic. To improve its mechanical properties, BCNC was crosslinked with glutaraldehyde and was analyzed as a potential candidate for DDS. The Fourier transform infrared analysis of the BCNC suggested that hydrolysis did not alter the chemical composition. The index of crystallinity of the BCNC was 18.31% higher than that of the original BC, suggesting that crystalline BC has been successfully isolated. The BCNC particle also showed a needle-like morphology which is 25 ± 10 nm in diameter and a mean length of 626 ± 172 nm. Crosslinked BCNC also had larger pores than the original BCNC along with higher thermal stability. Optimum phycocyanin adsorption on crosslinked BCNC reached 65.3% in 3 h. The release study shows that the crosslinked BCNC can protect the phycocyanin retardation by gastric fluid until phycocyanin reaches the targeted sites. This study provides an alternative potential DDS derived from natural bioresources with less expenses and better properties to promote the application of BCNC as functional nanomaterials in biomedical science.

Gelatin hydrogel is widely employed in various fields, however, commercially available gelatin hydrogels are mostly derived from mammalian which has many disadvantages due to the supply and ethical issues. In this study, the properties of hydrogels from fish-derived collagen fabricated with varying Glutaraldehyde (GA) determined. The antidiabetic properties of salmon gelatin (SG) and tilapia gelatin (TG) was also evaluated against α-glucosidase. Glutaraldehyde-crosslinked salmon gelatin and tilapia gelatin were used, and compared with different concentrations of GA by 0.05 %, 0.1 %, and 0.15 %. Water absorbency, swelling, porosity, pore size and water retention of the hydrogels were dependent on the degree of crosslinking. The synthesis of hydrogels was confirmed by FTIR study. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation showed that all hydrogels have a porous structure with irregular shapes and heterogeneous morphology. Performance tests showed that gelatin-GA 0.05 % mixture had the best performance. Antidiabetic bioactivity in vitro and in silico tests showed that the active peptides of SG and TG showed a high binding affinity to α-glucosidase enzyme. In conclusion, SG and TG cross-linked GA 0.05 % have the potential as an antidiabetic agent and as a useful option over mammalian-derived gelatin., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)