A NEWLY DEVELOPED TRANSDERMAL TREATMENT OF OSTEOARTHRITIS USING GELATIN NANOPARTICLES
Glucosamine sulfate (GS) is known to be formulated in an oral dosage form for treatment of osteoarthritis but it suffers from hepatic metabolism which greatly affects its bioavailability in addition to its side effects on the gastrointestinal tract. The aim of this study is to apply nanoencapsulation technologies of GS using gelatin nanoparticles (NPs) as a carrier in order to enhance its bioavailability and reduce toxicity after transdermal administration. The prepared gelatin nanoparticles were evaluated for percentage yield, encapsulation efficiency, transmission electron microscope (TEM), particle size, zeta potential and dielectric spectroscopy. The cumulative amount of GS released from gelatin NPs was studied using UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The permeability of GS-loaded NPS through rat skin was also investigated. The resultant nanoparticles have high drug loading efficiency of 92.5 % and high nanoparticle yield of 77%. TEM image showed that the gelatin NPS have small particle size of 65 nm. Particle size analyzer showed that the gelatin NPS possess a particle size of 85 nm. The zeta potential results and dielectric study indicated that some sort of physical interactions occurred between gelatin NPS and GS suggesting successful loading with GS. The release of GS from gelatin NPS increased with time and about 86.5% of GS was released in 7 hours. The permeation of GS through rat skin increased significantly in the presence of 10% dimethyl sulfoxide as a permeation enhancer. The results obtained suggest the feasibility of developing a successful glucosamine transdermal delivery nanosystem on an industrial scale using gelatin NPS overcoming the disadvantages of oral administration