Cytotoxicity and in vitro evaluation of whey protein-based hydrogels for diabetes mellitus treatment

Background: Gliclazide (GLZ) belongs to the second-generation of sulphonylureas, is a drug of choice for the management of type II DM. It belongs to BCS Class II. The major site of drug absorption for GLZ is the stomach; it displayed variation in the drug absorption rate and bioavailability due to the shorter gastric retention time. Floating mechanism performance gets affected when the gastric fluid level not sufficiently higher, which ultimately obstructs the floating behavior, which is the major limitation of reported formulations. This limitation can get over by folded the film into the capsule shell that dissolved in gastric fluid and film swell/expands to dimensions higher than pylorus sphincter (12mm), thus prevents its evacuation. Objective: To explore the floating mechanism in the designing of films along with a tendency to expand by swelling and unfolding by utilizing a mixture of hydrophilic and hydrophobic polymer to achieve the controlled drug delivery and prolonged gastric retention of drug. Methods: The gastroretentive floating films were formulated by the solvent casting technique using 32 full factorial design and subjected to in vitro evaluation parameters, drug-excipient compatibility, X-ray diffraction and accelerated stability study. Results: The pre-formulation study established the purity and identification of drug. FTIR study confirmed no drug excipient interaction. F3, F6, and F9 were optimized based on in vitro floating characteristics, swelling/expanding ability, and unfolding time study. All developed formulations were unfolded within 14-22 min after capsule disintegration. The F3 was selected as final formulation as its ability to control the release of drug for 24 hrs followed by Zero-order kinetics having super case 2 transport. XRD confirmed the amorphousness of drug within formulation. The stability study results revealed that formulation was quite stable at extreme storage condition. Conclusion: The developed novel formulation has a good potential for the effective management and treatment of Diabetes Mellitus.

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Exosome-Mediated Insulin Delivery for the Potential Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus

Pharmaceutics ◽

10.3390/pharmaceutics13111870 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (11) ◽

pp. 1870

Author(s):

Belén Rodríguez-Morales ◽

Marilena Antunes-Ricardo ◽

José González-Valdez

Keyword(s):

Diabetes Mellitus ◽

Human Insulin ◽

Insulin Delivery ◽

Dermal Fibroblasts ◽

Therapeutic Drug ◽

Extracellular Medium ◽

Glucose Levels ◽

Wide Range ◽

Diabetes Mellitus Treatment

Exosomes are extracellular nanovesicles between 30 and 150 nm that serve as essential messengers for different biological signaling and pathological processes. After their discovery, a wide range of applications have been developed, especially in therapeutic drug delivery. In this context, the aim of this work was to test the efficiency of exosome-mediated human insulin delivery using exosomes extracted from three different cell lines: hepatocellular carcinoma (HepG2); primary dermal fibroblasts (HDFa) and pancreatic β cells (RIN-m); all are related to the production and/or the ability to sense insulin and to consequently regulate glucose levels in the extracellular medium. The obtained results revealed that the optimal insulin loading efficiency was achieved by a 200 V electroporation, in comparison with incubation at room temperature. Moreover, the maximum in vitro exosome uptake was reached after incubation for 6 h, which slightly decreased 24 h after adding the exosomes. Glucose quantification assays revealed that exosome-mediated incorporation of insulin presented significant differences in HDFa and HepG2 cells, enhancing the transport in HDFa, in comparison with free human insulin effects in the regulation of extracellular glucose levels. No significant differences were found between the treatments in RIN-m cells. Hence, the results suggest that exosomes could potentially become a valuable tool for stable and biocompatible insulin delivery in diabetes mellitus treatment alternatives.

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