"Review of strategic methods for encapsulating essential oils into chitosan nanosystems and their applications".

Essential oils (EOs) are hydrophobic, concentrated extracts of botanical origin containing diverse bioactive molecules that have been used for their biomedical properties. On the other hand, the volatility, toxicity, and hydrophobicity limited their use in their pure form. Therefore, nano-encapsulation of EOs in a biodegradable polymeric platform showed a solution. Chitosan (CS) is a biodegradable polymer that has been intensively used for EOs encapsulation. Various approaches such as homogenization, probe sonication, electrospinning, and 3D printing have been utilized to integrate EOs in CS polymer. Different CS-based platforms were investigated for EOs encapsulation such as nanoparticles (NPs), nanofibers, films, nanoemulsions, 3D printed composites, and hydrogels. Biological applications of encapsulating EOs in CS include antioxidant, antimicrobial, and anticancer functions. This review explores the principles for nanoencapsulation strategies, and the available technologies are also reviewed, in addition to an in-depth overview of the current research and application of nano-encapsulated EOs.

Applying Box-Behnken Design for Formulation and Optimization of PLGA-Coffee Nanoparticles and Detecting Enhanced Antioxidant and Anticancer Activities.

In an attempt to prove biological activity enhancement upon particle size reduction to the nanoscale, coffee (Cf) was chosen to be formulated into poly(lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) nanoparticles (NPs) using the single emulsion-solvent evaporation (SE-SE) method via Box-Behnken Design (BBD) to study the impact of certain process and formulation parameters on the particle size and size homogeneity, surface stability and encapsulation efficiency (EE%). The coffee-loaded PLGA (PLGA-Cf) NPs were characterized by different methods to aid in selecting the optimum formulation conditions. The desirable physicochemical characteristics involved small particle sizes with an average of 318.60 ± 5.65 nm, uniformly distributed within a narrow range (PDI of 0.074 ± 0.015), with considerable stability (Zeta Potential of -20.50 ± 0.52 mV) and the highest EE% (85.92 ± 4.01%). The antioxidant and anticancer activities of plain PLGA NPs, pure Cf and the optimum PLGA-Cf NPs, were evaluated using 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assays, respectively. As a result of nano-encapsulation, antioxidant activity was enhanced by 26.5%. Encapsulated Cf showed higher anticancer potency than pure Cf against different cancerous cell lines with an increase of 86.78%, 78.17%, 85.84% and 84.84% against MCF-7, A-549, HeLa and HepG-2, respectively. The in vitro release followed the Weibull release model with slow and biphasic release profile in both tested pH media, 7.4 and 5.5.