In recent years, there has been growing interest in the
study of
particles loaded with bioactive compounds as a proposed additive with
potential nutraceutical effects. Therefore, our teamwork has designed
and characterized different particles loaded with lupeol and mangiferin,
which have shown different applications depending on the encapsulation
material but maintaining their effect on topoisomerase and cyclooxygenase
models. In this work, different loaded and unloaded encapsulation
matrices were used to evaluate their toxicity in an ex vivo system
of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and erythrocytes. As a
result, ZnO synthesized by sol–gel shows a toxic effect for
any cell [1 mg/mL]; however, those elaborated with polylactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) do not induce apoptosis after 72 h of
exposure; on the other hand, the lupeol standard has statistically
equal effects (p < 0.05) to those of etoposide
in mononuclear cells. This study demostrates the biocompatibility
of materials such as PLGA [1 mg/mL] for the encapsulation of phytochemicals,
with potential application as a food additive.