Formulation, Characterization and In vitro Drug Delivery of Vitexin Loaded Liposomes

Abstract

Liposome is a spherical vesicle which contains atleast one lipid bilayer. Liposomes are used as a novel drug carriers because of its hydrophobic and hydrophilic nature, it has many advantages in the field of medical sciences. There are some other drug carriers like dendrimers, micelles, niosomes. Out of all, liposomes are considered to be the most promising agent for drug delivery. The uniqueness of liposome is when it is used as a pharmaceutical drug, it acts as a natural receptor. Thus it acts as an antigen and binds with the antibody (cancer cell) without causing any damage to the adjacent cells. For the synthesis of liposomes, a phospholipid is required. The liposomes can be synthesized using egg yolk and chloroform. So the basic phospholipid is obtained from egg yolk. For more stability, the liposomes are prepared using popc. The present work discuss about the effective preparation of drug loaded liposomes using popc (1- palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3- phosphocholine). POPC is an important phospholipid for biophysical experiments. Additionally chloroform is used as the solvent for the liposome preparation. The drug chosen for liposome loading is vitexin (vxn), which is an effective therapeutic agent against inflammation and cancer. The vesicular size, shape, drug entrapment efficacy, stability, electrochemical property and drug releasing property of the formulated liposomes were characterized. The results showed that the formulated liposomes are considered as the better drug carrier system and good choice for biotransformation within the cell to reach the target site such as cancer cells. Even though available treatments like chemotherapy and radiation therapy, causes damage to the surrounding cells, the alternative drug transferring system such as liposomal mediated drug transfer within the cell is considered as good choice of treatment to avoid such complications. The aim of liposome mediated drug carrier system is to develop a method to reach the drug to the target site. After drug delivery at the target site, the liposomes are fused within the surface of the body. This is because of the pH of liposomes, which is at 7.4 and temperature is maintained at 37 oC. So, the vxn loaded liposomes are considered as the novel drug carriers for the successful targetted drug delivery.