In vivo uptake and acute immune response to orally administered chitosan and PEG coated PLGA nanoparticles.

Nanoparticulate drug delivery systems offer great promise in addressing challenges of drug toxicity, poor bioavailability and non-specificity for a number of drugs. Much progress has been reported for nano drug delivery systems for intravenous administration, however very little is known about the effects of orally administered nanoparticles. Furthermore, the development of nanoparticulate systems necessitates a thorough understanding of the biological response post exposure. This study aimed to elucidate the in vivo uptake of chitosan and polyethylene glycol (PEG) coated Poly, DL, lactic-co-glycolic Acid (PLGA) nanoparticles and the immunological response within 24 h of oral and peritoneal administration. These PLGA nanoparticles were administered orally and peritoneally to female Balb/C mice, they were taken up by macrophages of the peritoneum. When these particles were fluorescently labelled, intracellular localisation was observed. The expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-2, IL-6, IL-12p70 and TNF-α in plasma and peritoneal lavage was found to remain at low concentration in PLGA nanoparticles treated mice as well as ZnO nanoparticles during the 24 hour period. However, these were significantly increased in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treated mice. Of these pro-inflammatory cytokines, IL-6 and IL-12p70 were produced at the highest concentration in the positive control group. The anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-10 and chemokines INF-γ, IL-4, IL-5 remained at normal levels in PLGA treated mice. IL-10 and INF-γ were significantly increased in LPS treated mice. MCP-1 was found to be significantly produced in all groups in the first hours, except the saline treated mice. These results provide the first report to detail the induction of cytokine production by PLGA nanoparticles engineered for oral applications.

Determination of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, ethylenediaminedisuccinic acid and iminodisuccinic acid in cosmetic products by capillary electrophoresis and high performance liquid chromatography.

A capillary electrophoresis (CE) and a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method are described for the simultaneous determination of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), S,S'-ethylenediaminedisuccinic acid (EDDS) and R,S-iminodisuccinic acid (IDS) complexing agents as their Fe(III) complexes in cosmetics like shower cream and foam bath. The non-biodegradable EDTA is used in combination with biodegradable analogues like EDDS and IDS in many commercial products. The HPLC method involves separation by reversed-phase ion pair chromatography on a C(18) column using methanol-formate buffer (20 mM tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate, 15 mM sodium formate adjusted to pH 4.0 with formic acid) (10:90, v/v) as mobile solvent at a flow rate of 0.8 mL min(-1) at 24 degrees C using UV detection at 240 nm. The CE separation was performed in a fused silica capillary of 50 microm i.d. with the total length of 50 cm with a 10 mM MES and MOPSO (pH 5.5) at an applied voltage of -25 kV. The samples were introduced by applying a 50 mbar pressure for 2s. Absorbances at 215 and 225 nm were monitored for the detection of the complexes. The methodology performance of the two methods was evaluated in terms of linearity, limit of detection (LOD), limit of quantitation (LOQ) and reproducibility. The LOD values obtained from HPLC are low when compared with CE. The applicability of both the methods was demonstrated for the analysis of cosmetic products such as shower cream and foam bath. The results obtained by both CE and HPLC were found to be comparable and in good agreement.