Abstract
Nowadays, personalized nutrition/medicine has become one of the hot topics to modify target agent dosage and allow personalized treatment by changing geometries of printed gels. Light-induced 3D printing technologies enable fabrication of solid forms by mixing photocurable monomer with drug/active agents. However, the use of synthetic polymers and toxic photoinitiators (PIs) makes a concern for SLA printing. In this study, it was firstly aimed to use natural PI, riboflavin in precursor resin. Then, poly (ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) based hydrogels embedded with oleuropein (OLE) were printed through UV-induced polymerization at varying shapes (radiator, hexagonal, square, ring, and round). Olive leaf extract including OLE as main antioxidant source is a valuable waste product for sustainability and additive/nutraceutical use in the food and pharmaceutical industry. This work investigated fabricated 3D gels in terms of their printability, physical properties, physicochemical features, and drug-release profiles. More importantly, encapsulated OLE within 3D printed gel was examined to see the effect of light-induced printing on its antioxidant acitivity. 3D OLE added gels showed very high printability ratios which were close to 1 whereas control gel without OLE was not printed successfully. Moreover, the results confirmed the existence of antioxidant activity (up to 87%) of 3D gels even after UV-induced printing. Based on surface area/volume (SA/V) ratio, radiator and square gels gave the highest release as they had high SA/V proportions. Structural changes in the compounds after UV curing process was also confirmed by FT-IR spectrum. The drug release profiles followed the Peppas model having n value in the range of 0.44–0.54, demonstrating that the release was mostly affected by diffusion. This study shows potential contribution to pharmaceutical and food industries in terms of designing personalized OLE dosages using the Stereolithography (SLA) printing with controlled release by manipulating geometry alone.
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