Preparation, characterization and antibacterial property of naringin loaded PLGA nanospheres

Abstract

Naringin is a predominant flavanone in grapefruit and shows a variety of biological effects such as antioxidative, anticancer, anti-inflammatory and antibacterial activity. However, its application in pharmaceutical field is limited by low water solubility, poor bioavailability and instability. To overcome the problem, naringin has been encapsulated in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) polymer by emulsion-diffusion-evaporation method in this work. Moreover, naringin loaded PLGA nanospheres were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), dynamic light scatter method (DLS), fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra, UV–vis spectra and fluorescence spectra of DNA-EB competition displacement. The mean diameter of PLGA nanospheres and NRG/PLGA nanospheres was 123 ​± ​25 ​nm and 137 ​± ​30 ​nm, respectively. The drug encapsulation efficiency was 86.4% while the drug loading rate was 22.3%. The fluorescence spectra of the competitive DNA-binding experiments revealed that the functional activity of naringin was retained after loaded in PLGA. It is revealed that the initial burst effect happened in the initial 24 ​h and followed by sustained release lasting for 10 days. Moreover, the nanospheres exhibited strong antibacterial activity, and 99.9% of E. coli and S. aureus were killed when treated with naringin loaded PLGA nanospheres at the concentration of 0.2 ​mg ​mL−1 within 24 ​h. Furthermore, the viable cells remained only 48% when the concentration of NRG/PLGA nanospheres was 32 ​μg ​mL−1 and NRG/PLGA nanospheres was important for inhibition of cancer cells. It is concluded that the stable naringin loaded PLGA nanospheres could have potential application in food industry and nanomedicine field.