Chitosan Lecithin Nanoparticles with New Chemical Entity. Nanotoxicity Evaluation

Abstract

Chronic skin wounds are an exponentially increasing problem on a world basis, and are often hard to treat due to bacterial biofilm formation and resistance to different antibiotic treatments. Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aDPT) shows promise in resolving this issue, but clinical based treatments have yet to be established although photodynamic therapy is used for other conditions. A new chemical entity (NCE) encapsulated in chitosan/lecithin nanoparticles as well as NCE as a free drug was evaluated for potential cytotoxic effects by an in vitro MTT assay performed on HaCaT cells. The nanoparticles were varying in mean size (173.9±69.2 to 486.3±197.9) and zeta potential (16.5±1.67 to 66.3±1.15); depending on the chitosan/lecithin ratio, and the entrapment was between 42.1±0.3 to 84.4±0.2 %. To evaluate the cytotoxic effect different solutions of free NCE (50 to 500 mg/mL) and NCE in the nanoparticles (103.1 to 824.8 μg/mL) were tested. The results found non-significant decreases in cell viability for the lower concentrations, as well as significant increases in cell viability higher concentrations. Although NCE showed promising results with little to no toxicity in both formulations, further testing needs to be conducted before a final toxicity assessment can be made.