Catherine Charcosset

Liposome preparation using a hollow fiber membrane contactor—Application to spironolactone encapsulation

In this study, we present a novel liposome preparation technique suitable for the entrapment of pharmaceutical and cosmetic agents. This new method uses a membrane contactor in a hollow fiber configuration. In order to investigate the process, key parameters influence on the liposome characteristics was studied. It has been established that the vesicle size distribution decreased with the organic phase pressure decrease, the phospholipid concentration decreases and the aqueous to organic phase volume ratio increases. Liposomes were filled with a hydrophobic drug model, spironolactone that could be used for a paediatric medication. The mean size of drug-free and drug-loaded liposomes was, respectively, 113 ± 4 nm and 123 ± 3 nm. The zeta potential of drug-free and drug-loaded liposomes was, respectively, -43 ± 0.7 mV and -23 ± 0.6 mV. High entrapment efficiency values were successfully achieved (93 ± 1.12%). Transmission electron microscopy images revealed nanometric sized and spherical shaped oligo-lamellar vesicles. The release profile showed a rapid and complete release within about 5h. Additionally, special attention was paid on process reproducibility and long term lipid vesicles stability. Results confirmed the robustness of the hollow fiber module based technique. Moreover, the technique is simple, fast and has a potential for continuous production of nanosized liposome suspensions at large scale.

Preparation of vitamin E loaded nanocapsules by the nanoprecipitation method: from laboratory scale to large scale using a membrane contactor.

Vitamin E or α-tocopherol is widely used as a strong antioxidant in many medical and cosmetic applications, but is rapidly degraded, because of its light, heat and oxygen sensitivity. In this study, we applied the nanoprecipitation method to prepare vitamin E-loaded nanocapsules, at laboratory-scale and pilot-scale. We scaled-up the preparation of nanocapsule with the membrane contactor technique. The effect of several formulation variables on the vitamin E-loaded nanocapsules properties (mean diameter, zeta potential, and drug entrapment efficiency) was investigated. The optimized formulation at laboratory-scale and pilot-scale lead to the preparation of vitamin E-loaded nanocapsules with mean diameter of 165 and 172 nm, respectively, and a high encapsulation efficiency (98% and 97%, respectively).

Preparation and characterization of clove essential oil-loaded liposomes

In this study, suitable formulations of natural soybean phospholipid vesicles were developed to improve the stability of clove essential oil and its main component, eugenol. Using an ethanol injection method, saturated (Phospholipon 80H, Phospholipon 90H) and unsaturated soybean (Lipoid S100) phospholipids, in combination with cholesterol, were used to prepare liposomes at various eugenol and clove essential oil concentrations. Liposomal batches were characterized and compared for their size, polydispersity index, Zeta potential, loading rate, encapsulation efficiency and morphology. The liposomes were tested for their stability after storing them for 2 months at 4°C by monitoring changes in their mean size, polydispersity index and encapsulation efficiency (EE) values. It was found that liposomes exhibited nanometric oligolamellar and spherical shaped vesicles and protected eugenol from degradation induced by UV exposure; they also maintained the DPPH-scavenging activity of free eugenol. Liposomes constitute a suitable system for encapsulation of volatile unstable essential oil constituents.

Essential oils encapsulated in liposomes: a review

Abstract In the recent years there has been an increased interest toward the biological activities of essential oils. However, essential oils are unstable and susceptible to degradation in the presence of oxygen, light and temperature. So, attempts have been made to preserve them through encapsulation in various colloidal systems such as microcapsules, microspheres, nanoemulsions and liposomes. This review focuses specifically on encapsulation of essential oils into liposomes. First, we present the techniques used to prepare liposomes encapsulating essential oils. The effects of essential oils and other factors on liposome characteristics such as size, encapsulation efficiency and thermal behavior of lipid bilayers are then discussed. The composition of lipid vesicles membrane, especially the type of phospholipids, cholesterol content, the molar ratio of essential oils to lipids, the preparation method and the kind of essential oil may affect the liposome size and the encapsulation efficiency. Several essential oils can decrease the size of liposomes, homogenize the liposomal dispersions, increase the fluidity and reduce the oxidation of the lipid bilayer. Moreover, liposomes can protect the fluidity of essential oils and are stable at 4–5 °C for 6 months at least. The applications of liposomes incorporating essential oils are also summarized in this review. Liposomes encapsulating essential oils are promising agents that can be used to increase the anti-microbial activity of the essential oils, to study the effect of essential oils on cell membranes, and to provide alternative therapeutic agents to treat several diseases.

A new method for liposome preparation using a membrane contactor

In this article, we present a novel, scalable liposomal preparation technique suitable for the entrapment of pharmaceutical agents into liposomes. This new method is based on the ethanol-injection technique and uses a membrane contactor module, specifically designed for colloidal system preparation. In order to investigate the process, the influence of key parameters on liposome characteristics was studied. It has been established that vesicle-size distribution decreased with a decrease of the organic-phase pressure, an increase of the aqueous-phase flow rate, and a decrease of the phospholipid concentration. Additionally, special attention was paid on reproducibility and long-term stability of lipid vesicles, confirming the robustness of the membrane contactor-based technique. On the other hand, drug-loaded liposomes were prepared and filled with two hydrophobic drug models. High entrapment-efficiency values were successfully achieved for indomethacin (63%) and beclomethasone dipropionate (98%). Transmission electron microscopy images revealed nanometric quasispherical-shaped multilamellar vesicles (size ranging from 50 to 160 nm).

Liposome and niosome preparation using a membrane contactor for scale-up

The scaling-up ability of liposome and niosome production, from laboratory scale using a syringe-pump device to a pilot scale using the membrane contactor module, was investigated. For this aim, an ethanol injection-based method was applied for liposome and niosome preparation. The syringe-pump device was used for laboratory scale batches production (30 ml for liposomes, 20 ml for niosomes) then a pilot scale (750 ml for liposomes, 1000 ml for niosomes) were obtained using the SPG membrane contactor. Resulted nanovesicles were characterized in terms of mean vesicles size, polydispersity index (PdI) and zeta potential. The drug encapsulation efficiency (E.E.%) was evaluated using two drug-models: caffeine and spironolactone, a hydrophilic and a lipophilic molecule, respectively. As results, nanovectors mean size using the syringe-pump device was comprised between 82 nm and 95 nm for liposomes and between 83 nm and 127 nm for niosomes. The optimal E.E. of caffeine within niosomes, was found around 9.7% whereas the spironolactone E.E. reached 95.6% which may be attributed to its lipophilic properties. For liposomes these values were about 9.7% and 86.4%, respectively. It can be clearly seen that the spironolactone E.E. was slightly higher within niosomes than liposomes. Optimized formulations, which offered smaller size and higher E.E., were selected for pilot scale production using the SPG membrane. It has been found that vesicles characteristics (size and E.E.%) were reproducible using the membrane contactor module. Thus, the current study demonstrated the usefulness of the membrane contactor as a device for scaling-up both liposome and niosome preparations with small mean sizes.

Influence of the Formulation for Solid Lipid Nanoparticles Prepared with a Membrane Contactor

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) were introduced in the 1990s as an alternative to microemulsions, polymeric nanoparticles, and liposomes. The SLN are reported to have several advantages, i.e., their biocompatibility and their controlled and targeted drug release. In this paper, we present a new process for the preparation of SLN using a membrane contactor to allow large scale production. The lipid phase is pressed, at a temperature above the melting point of the lipid, through the membrane pores allowing the formation of small droplets. The lipid droplets are then detached from the membrane pores by the aqueous phase flowing tangentially to the membrane surface. The SLN are formed by the following cooling of the preparation below the lipid melting point. The influence of the aqueous phase and lipid phase formulations on the lipid phase flux and on the SLN size are studied. It is shown that SLN are obtained with a lipid phase flux between 0.21 and 0.27 m3/h.m2, SLN size between 175 and 260 nm. The advantages of this new process are demonstrated to be its facility of use and its scaling-up ability.

Numerical simulation of mass transfer in a liquid–liquid membrane contactor for laminar flow conditions

Liquid-liquid phase membrane contactors are increasingly being used for mixing and reaction. The principle is the following: component A flows through the membrane device inlet to mix/react with component B which comes from the membrane pores. This study presents a numerical simulation using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of momentum and mass transfer in a tubular membrane contactor for laminar flow conditions. The velocity and concentration profiles of components A-C are obtained by resolution of the Navier-Stokes and convection-diffusion equations. The numerical simulations show that mixing between A and B is obtained by diffusion along the streamlines separating both components. The mixing/reaction zone width is within the region of a few hundred of microns, and depends on the diffusion coefficients of A and B. Hollow fiber membrane devices are found to be of particular interest because their inner diameter is close to the mixing zone width.

Preparation of liposomes: A novel application of microengineered membranes-From laboratory scale to large scale

A novel ethanol injection method using microengineered nickel membrane was employed to produce POPC (1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine) and Lipoid(®) E80 liposomes at different production scales. A stirred cell device was used to produce 73ml of the liposomal suspension and the product volume was then increased by a factor of 8 at the same transmembrane flux (140lm(-2)h(-1)), volume ratio of the aqueous to organic phase (4.5) and peak shear stress on the membrane surface (2.7Pa). Two different strategies for shear control on the membrane surface have been used in the scaled-up versions of the process: a cross flow recirculation of the aqueous phase across the membrane surface and low frequency oscillation of the membrane surface (∼40Hz) in a direction normal to the flow of the injected organic phase. Using the same membrane with a pore size of 5μm and pore spacing of 200μm in all devices, the size of the POPC liposomes produced in all three membrane systems was highly consistent (80-86nm) and the coefficient of variation ranged between 26 and 36%. The smallest and most uniform liposomal nanoparticles were produced in a novel oscillating membrane system. The mean vesicle size increased with increasing the pore size of the membrane and the injection time. An increase in the vesicle size over time was caused by deposition of newly formed phospholipid fragments onto the surface of the vesicles already formed in the suspension and this increase was most pronounced for the cross flow system, due to long recirculation time. The final vesicle size in all membrane systems was suitable for their use as drug carriers in pharmaceutical formulations.

pH-sensitive micelles for targeted drug delivery prepared using a novel membrane contactor method

A novel membrane contactor method was used to produce size-controlled poly(ethylene glycol)-b-polycaprolactone (PEG-PCL) copolymer micelles composed of diblock copolymers with different average molecular weights, Mn (9200 or 10,400 Da) and hydrophilic fractions, f (0.67 or 0.59). By injecting 570 L m(-2) h(-1) of the organic phase (a 1 mg mL(-1) solution of PEG-PCL in tetrahydrofuran) through a microengineered nickel membrane with a hexagonal pore array and 200 μm pore spacing into deionized water agitated at 700 rpm, the micelle size linearly increased from 92 nm for a 5-μm pore size to 165 nm for a 40-μm pore size. The micelle size was finely tuned by the agitation rate, transmembrane flux and aqueous to organic phase ratio. An encapsulation efficiency of 89% and a drug loading of ~75% (w/w) were achieved when a hydrophobic drug (vitamin E) was entrapped within the micelles, as determined by ultracentrifugation method. The drug-loaded micelles had a mean size of 146 ± 7 nm, a polydispersity index of 0.09 ± 0.01, and a ζ potential of -19.5 ± 0.2 mV. When drug-loaded micelles where stored for 50 h, a pH sensitive drug release was achieved and a maximum amount of vitamin E (23%) was released at the pH of 1.9. When a pH-sensitive hydrazone bond was incorporated between PEG and PCL blocks, no significant change in micelle size was observed at the same micellization conditions.