Vesicular systems for the topical delivery of nobiletin

Abstract

The era of nanotechnology is developing at a fast pace especially in the field of medicine owing to the growing need for novel treatment approaches able to achieve better therapeutic outcome with minimal side effects than conventional strategies. In this perspective, the use of nanotechnology in cancer therapy has emerged as one of the most fruitful research areas, because it enables targeted drug delivery. Moreover, nutraceuticals are widely studied for treatment of various diseases owing to their availability, efficacy and low cost. Skin cancer is a high burden disease with a high impact on global health and current treatment methods possess lots of drawbacks. Nobiletin is a nutraceutical with activity against skin cancer via multiple mechanism; inhibition of both nitric oxide and superoxide generation which are closely linked to epithelial carcinogenesis, suppression of cyclooxygenase2 (COX-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase proteins expression, as well as inhibition of prostaglandin E2 release. The aim of this study was to incorporate nobiletin in nano-vesicular system capable of enhancing the therapeutic outcome of the drug. The work in this thesis was divided into two chapters Chapter I: Preparation and characterization of nobiletin vesicular systems The work in this chapter included the preparation and characterization of different vesicular formulations using thin film hydration technique. The characterization of the formulations was conducted for their particle size, zeta potential, polydispersity index,