Abstract
Oral candidiasis (OC) is an infectious disease caused by microorganisms of the genus Candida, leading to lesions in the buccal cavity. Its treatment consists of the administration of topical or systemic antifungal agents, which may compromise the patient compliance due to its side effects, highlighting the need for alternative treatments. In this scenario, bullfrog oil, an animal oil composed of a pool of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, is introduced as a potential antifungal raw material. Thus, the aim of this work was to produce a mucoadhesive emulsified system able to deliver the bullfrog oil in the buccal cavity to treat the OC. The emulsion was produced and characterized by visual inspection, droplet size, polydispersity index (PdI), and zeta potential over the course of 60 days. In addition, its mucoadhesive ability was evaluated using an in vitro mucin model. The antifungal activity, evaluated by the broth microdilution assay and the biocompatibility, performed against human erythrocytes, were also carried out. The emulsion showed a droplet size of 320.79 ± 35.60 nm, a PdI of 0.49 ± 0.08, and a zeta potential of −38.53 ± 6.23 mV, with no significant changes over 60 days. The mucoadhesive properties of the system was improved by the use of pharmaceutical excipients. The antifungal activity showed that the bullfrog oil and the emulsion were able to inhibit the growth of different Candida species. Furthermore, the emulsion showed no significant hemolytic effect. Overall, the system showed suitable physicochemical characteristics and biocompatibility, with substantial in vitro antifungal activity, suggesting that this system can be further investigated for OC treatment.
Highlights
Oral infections are a group of widespread diseases that affect individuals of all ages and socioeconomic classes, often triggered by commensal microorganisms, which may become pathogenic due to inappropriate buccal hygiene or trauma, mainly when the patient’s immunity is compromised [1]
The pathogenicity of these species is assigned to virulence factors that promote the adhesion to host cells, affecting the buccal keratinized mucosa and oral prosthesis, with possible biofilm formation on host tissues or medical devices, contributing to the maintenance of the infection, allowing the microorganism to escape from host defense mechanisms [9] and increasing its ability to invade the colonized tissue, promoting oral mucosa damage [9,10,11]
Physicochemical analyses were performed to evaluate the quality of the bullfrog oil according to the adapted titration methods described in the United States Pharmacopeia (USP 35) [22] and the American Oil Chemists Society guidelines [23] for peroxide index (PI), acid index (AI), iodine index (II), and saponification index (SI)
Summary
Oral infections are a group of widespread diseases that affect individuals of all ages and socioeconomic classes, often triggered by commensal microorganisms, which may become pathogenic due to inappropriate buccal hygiene or trauma, mainly when the patient’s immunity is compromised [1]. Oral candidiasis is one of the most common clinical symptoms of patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and transplanted patients [4,7,8]. The pathogenicity of these species is assigned to virulence factors that promote the adhesion to host cells, affecting the buccal keratinized mucosa and oral prosthesis, with possible biofilm formation on host tissues or medical devices, contributing to the maintenance of the infection, allowing the microorganism to escape from host defense mechanisms [9] and increasing its ability to invade the colonized tissue, promoting oral mucosa damage [9,10,11]
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