Over the previous years, the design, development, and potential application of nanocarriers in the medical field have been intensively studied for their ability to preserve drug properties, especially their pharmacological activity, and to improve their bioavailability. This work is a comparative study between two different types of nanocarriers, poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid)-based nanoparticles and phosphatidylcholine-based nanoliposomes, both prepared for the encapsulation of bovine serum albumin as a model protein. Polymeric nanoparticles were produced using the double emulsion water-oil-water evaporation method, whereas nanoliposomes were obtained by the thin-film hydration method. Both nanocarriers were characterized by morphological analysis, particle mean size, particle size distribution, and protein entrapment efficiency. Invitro release studies were performed for 12 days at 37 °C. In order to explore a possible application of these nanocarriers for a targeted therapy in the cardiovascular field, hemolytic activity and biocompatibility, in terms of cell viability, were performed by using human red blood cells and EA.hy926 human endothelial cell line, respectively.

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BACKGROUND Pigmented rice is rich in coloured molecules known as anthocyanins, which exhibit a strong antioxidant activity and are used as additives to improve both the aspect and nutraceutical value of food. RESULTS In this work, Nerone Gold 26/6 was employed as raw material for the extraction of antioxidants varying solvents and the operating conditions by evaluating three different techniques, i.e., (1) conventional solid–liquid extraction, (2) high pressure and temperature extraction, and (3) ultrasound‐assisted extraction. The quality of extracts was assayed by determining their total polyphenol yield, total flavonoid yield, total anthocyanin yield, and the antioxidant activity by spectrophotometric analyses, as well as the phenolic profile by high performance liquid chromatography. High pressure and temperature extraction presented the highest content of polyphenols (14.0 ± 1.10 mggallic acid equivalents/gdried biomass) using a green solvent as ethanol 70% (v/v), while ultrasound‐assisted extraction carried out for 20 min showed the highest anthocyanin content (7.5 ± 0.94 mgmalvidin equivalents/gdried biomass). Both of the extracts were biologically validated on human endothelial cells. CONCLUSION Among the non‐conventional techniques, high pressure and temperature extraction at 60 °C and ultrasound‐assisted extraction for 20 min provided high total polyphenol, flavonoid, and anthocyanin yields and antioxidant activities compared to solid–liquid extraction. Both extracts were well tolerated by endothelial cells in a concentration ranging from 0.0125 to 0.0500 mggallic acid equivalents/mLextract. Finally, solid phase extraction was responsible of a further increase of the extract biocompatibility. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality in the Western world. Among them, atherosclerosis (ATH) represents one the most common diseases in the modern world due to the common...

This work is a comparative study among three different biocompatible and biodegradable polymers, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), poly(ε-caprolactone), and poly(lactic acid), used to produce microparticles for the encapsulation of bevacizumab for drug delivery purposes. All the formulations were produced using the double emulsion water-oil-water evaporation method and characterized in terms of particle mean diameter, particle size distribution, and bevacizumab entrapment efficiency. Bevacizumab cumulative release was taken into consideration to study the dissolution kinetics from the three different polymeric delivery platforms for a period of 50 days at 37 °C in phosphate buffered saline and mathematical models of the drug release kinetic were attempted in order to describe the release phenomena from the different types of the studied microparticles. Finally, cell viability on human endothelial cell line EA.hy926 was studied to define the maximum cytocompatible concentration for each microsystem, registering the mitochondrial functionality through MTS assay.