Fabrication of Stable and Self-Assembling Rapeseed Protein Nanogel for Hydrophobic Curcumin Delivery

Abstract

Food-dervied biopolymer nanogels have recently received considerable attention as favorable carrier systems for nutraceuticals and drugs. In the present study, new biocompatible and self-assembled acylated rapeseed protein isolate (ARPI)-based nanogels were fabricated for potential hydrophobic drug delivery by chemical acylation and heat-induced protein denaturation. The effects of the ARPI concentration, pH, heat temperature, and heat time on the physiochemical properties of self-assembled ARPI nanogels were investigated. The optimized ARPI nanogels were characterized by a hydrodiameter of 170 nm in size, spherical morphology, and light core–dark shell structure. In comparison to native rapeseed protein isolates and ARPI without the heat treatment, ARPI nanogels as a result of dual acylation and heat processes exhibited significantly altered spatial secondary and tertiary structures, increased surface hydrophobicity, and decreased free sulfhydryl contents of the protein. Such properties endow amphilic ARPI with the self-aggregating ability, resulting in the hydrophobic core with formations of covalent disulfide bonds and the hydrophilic shell with succinyl moieties exposed to the water side. Such a cross-linked structure allowed for ARPI nanogels to be resistant against a broad array of pH and ionic strength as well as lyophilization and dilution. ARPI nanogels demonstrated 95% encapsulation efficiency of hydrophobic compound curcumin and significantly increased its anticancer activity against multiple cancer cell lines.

Dose Effects of Orally Administered Spirulina Suspension on Colonic Microbiota in Healthy Mice

“…To sustain or restore the intestinal bacterial homeostasis in healthy individuals or disease states, several approaches have been implemented, including the oral supplementation of probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics (Verdu, 2009; Quigley, 2018), fecal microbiota transplantation (Zipursky et al, 2012; Li et al, 2016; Bilinski et al, 2017), bacterial consortium transplantation (Li et al, 2015) as well as bacteriocins and bacteriophage targeted antimicrobial therapies (Mills et al, 2017). Especially, orally supplementing non-medical nutraceuticals derived from the food sources have been widely used for disease prevention and amelioration of disease symptoms due to its potential capacity of promoting the growth of commensal gut microorganisms (Cencic and Chingwaru, 2010; Laparra and Sanz, 2010; Wang et al, 2019). Nevertheless, the meta-analysis of humans and animals studies reveals inconsistent individual responsiveness and clinical outcomes of consuming food supplements or dietary compounds (Gibson et al, 2017; Quigley, 2018).…”

Formation and emulsification properties of self‐assembled potato protein microgel particles under different pH conditions

“…Larger microgels were formed at pH 4.0 (apparent diameter ∼200 nm), which was unanimous with the particle size results obtained from the DLS method, this protein microstructure was also observed in investigating β‐Lactoglobulin heat‐set gels at the isoelectric pH. Interestingly, the microstructure of PPM6 was similar to rapeseed protein nanogel, which has a core − shell nanostructure with a light core and a dark shell (Wang et al ., 2019). Moreover, slightly smaller particle sizes were determined by TEM compared to those obtained from Zetasizer measurements, which was due to water‐swelling characteristics of microgels when samples were suspended in the aqueous media (Ji et al ., 2018).…”

Protein-Based Nanohydrogels for Bioactive Delivery

“…The encapsulation efficiency of ARPI nanogels was investigated using curcumin as the hydrophobic protype which was found to be 95%, and no significant change was observed in the size of nanogels upon loading the curcumin. ARPI nanogels significantly increased the solubility of poorly soluble curcumin by more than 100 times, and also enhanced its anticancer activity against several cancer cell lines (Wang Z. et al, 2019).…”