Abstract
To develop proper drug formulations and to optimize the delivery of their active ingredients through the dermal barrier, the Franz diffusion cell system is the most widely used in vitro/ex vivo technique. However, different providers and manufacturers make various types of this equipment (horizontal, vertical, static, flow-through, smaller and larger chambers, etc.) with high variability and not fully comparable and consistent data. Furthermore, a high amount of test drug formulations and large size of diffusion skin surface and membranes are important requirements for the application of these methods. The aim of our study was to develop a novel Microfluidic Diffusion Chamber device and compare it with the traditional techniques. Here the design, fabrication, and a pilot testing of a microfluidic skin-on-a chip device are described. Based on this chip, further developments can also be implemented for industrial purposes to assist the characterization and optimization of drug formulations, dermal pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamic studies. The advantages of our device, beside the low costs, are the small drug and skin consumption, low sample volumes, dynamic arrangement with continuous flow mimicking the dermal circulation, as well as rapid and reproducible results.
Highlights
For testing drug absorption across the dermal barrier there are in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo techniques in the toolbox of pharmaceutical researchers
The small animal skins [4] have traditionally been used in studies to predict human tissue permeability as they are usually inexpensive to purchase and maintain
Those tissues are thinner than human skin and have different morphologies resulting in higher compound permeabilities
Summary
For testing drug absorption across the dermal barrier there are in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo techniques in the toolbox of pharmaceutical researchers. Polymeric membranes [2,3] are applied for release testing. The step in the complexity of the drug release and penetration testing is the application of different skin preparations from animals and humans in Franz cells. The small animal (such as rat, mouse, and rabbit) skins [4] have traditionally been used in studies to predict human tissue permeability as they are usually inexpensive to purchase and maintain. Those tissues are thinner than human skin and have different morphologies resulting in higher compound permeabilities. Ethical and legal concerns may arise when obtaining human tissue biopsies and surgical specimens
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