Facile Solvent-Free Preparation of Antioxidant Idebenone-Loaded Nanoparticles for Efficient Wound Healing

Abstract

The excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) causes harmful effects, including biomolecular damage and inflammation. ROS due to ultraviolet rays, blue light, and fine dust harm the skin, causing urban-related aging. Therefore, a strong antioxidant that relieves oxidative stress in the skin and removes ROS is required. Idebenone (IB) is a powerful antioxidant but is poorly soluble and thus has low solubility in water, resulting in low bioavailability. In this study, IB-loaded nanoparticles (IB@NPs) were synthesized by loading IB without an organic solvent into nanoparticles that can provide high loading efficiency and stability for solubilization. Indeed, the synthesized IB@NPs exhibited long-term stability through dynamic light scattering, methylene blue staining, and redispersion assays, and IB@NPs prepared with a 5 wt% IB loading content were found to be optimal. The antioxidant activity of IB@NPs evaluated using the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) assay was significantly higher than that of unloaded IB. In addition, IB@NPs showed excellent biocompatibility, inhibited oxidative damage to mouse NIH-3T3 fibroblasts, and reduced intracellular ROS generation according to an in vitro DPPH antioxidant assay. Most notably, IB@NPs significantly promoted wound healing in vitro, as demonstrated by scratch assays. Therefore, as carriers with excellent stability, IB@NPs have potential cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications.

Facile Fabrication of α-Bisabolol Nanoparticles with Improved Antioxidant and Antibacterial Effects

“…The resulting products are denoted as ABS@NP × wt%, where × wt% represents the ABS loading respect to polyglyceryl-4 caprate. The same method was used to prepare empty nanoparticles (NPs) of polyglyceryl-4 caprate without the addition of ABS (denoted as ABS@NP 0 wt%) [7]. The zeta potential, PDI, and particle size of ABS@NPs were estimated through DLS using an electrophoretic light-scattering spectrophotometer (ELS-Z2, Otsuka Electronics Co., Tokyo, Japan).…”

“…Next, 2 mL of the dye solution was added to 2 mL of the ABS@NPs suspension and mixed in a 4 mL vial. Finally, the solution was visually examined to confirm the precipitation or dispersion of ABS@NPs [7,38].…”

“…ROS, which are highly reactive forms of intermediates, include hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), superoxide radical (O 2 − ), and hydroxyl radical (OH − ). They cause extreme damage to biomolecules in cells and mitochondria, thereby inducing inflammation and excessive oxidative stress in the body resulting in various diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer's disease (AD), in humans [7][8][9][10][11][12]. Therefore, compounds with antioxidant properties that have the ability to remove these free radicals have garnered considerable interest in relation to the development of various bioproducts in the modern urbanized society, where many factors, such as ultraviolet rays, fine dust, and blue light, induce the formation of active oxygen species [13][14][15].…”

“…However, owing to the insolubility of ABS in water, its bioavailability is low, and it is difficult to develop a bioproduct based on ABS due to its lipophilicity [28,[34][35][36][37]. To overcome these disadvantages, nanocapsule techniques using amphiphilic polymers or solubilizers have been developed to enhance the bioavailability and solubility of hydrophobic substances, such as ABS [7,[28][29][30]36,37]. However, the ABS loading and physicochemical stability of the previously developed systems are low, the manufacturing process is complicated, and the fabrication requires temperature-controlled environmental conditions [29][30][31]37].…”

Biomaterials in Skin Wound Healing and Tissue Regenerations—An Overview

“…The excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) causes harmful effects, including biomolecular damage, increased inflammatory reaction, and delayed wound healing. In this context, looking for stable antioxidants that can relieve excessive oxidative stress in the injured tissues, Yang and co-workers [10] obtained and examined idebenone-nanoparticles (IB@NPs) with high and stable antioxidant activity for efficient wound healing in vitro. IB@NPs showed excellent biocompatibility, inhibited oxidative damage to mouse NIH-3T3 fibroblasts, and reduced intracellular ROS generation according to an in vitro DPPH antioxidant assay.…”