Development and Characterization of Thermoreversible In-situ Gel Containing Curcumin Nanoparticles for Nasal Delivery: Design, Ex-Vivo Study

Abstract

The present study aimed to develop and evaluate thermoreversible in situ nasal gel containing Curcumin nanoparticles. Curcumin nanoparticles were prepared by the ionic gelation method. These formulations were evaluated for entrapment efficiency, particle size, zeta potential, and In vitro drug release. Particle size and zeta potential of F1 formulation were found to be 299 nm, 0.1 mV, and entrapment efficiency was found to be87.2%. From the formulations, F1 shows maximum amount of drug released in a sustained manner for a prolonged period time. Hence F1formulation was selected as optimized and further used for thermoreversible in situ nasal gel by using 2×2 factorial designs. The thermoreversible nasal gel was evaluated for the gelation temperature (33˚C), viscosity (10550cps) and spreadability (17.29±0.3 gm*cm/sec). Further, the prepared gel (F1G3) was evaluated for ex vivo permeation study for12 hours and it shows maximum amount of drug release in a controlled manner. The % CDR of thermoreversible in situ gel formulation F1G3 was found to be 86.27% which follow the Higuchi model. The 'n' value of the formulation was found to be more than 0.5. This indicate that the release approximates the non-fickain diffusion mechanism.
 Keywords: Curcumin nanoparticles, Carbopol 934, PF127, Thermoreversible in situ gel, Cold method, Nasal delivery.