Characterization of the penetrability of flexible and rigid nanoparticles into reconstructed human skin

Abstract

Topical drug administration is the favorite route to treat skin diseases and to reduce risks of systemic effects. Drug delivery systems represent an alternative strategy to carry active agents for topical application. Particle size is a limiting parameter to determine the penetration of nanoparticles into the skin. Dendritic polymers are a class of polymers that have been shown a good alternative as drug delivery system for hydrophobic drugs. An important effect of dendrimers is the nanoscale size (typically 1-20 nm) that offers advantages to enhance dermal drugs permeation and consequently can improve the topical therapy. Penetration of nanoparticles into diseased skin has not been much explored. However, cutaneous absorption of nanoparticles through diseased skin needs to be considered. Reconstructed human skin (RHS) has been widely used to investigate many aspects for cutaneous biology, such as genotoxicity, skin irritation and skin penetration. A three-dimensional in vitro construct of human skin diseases, such as aged model, a can be used to improve the in vitro skin penetration experiments. On this project we will evaluate the penetration of dendrimers in aged RHS.