Engineered Bacterial Cellulose Nanostructured Matrix for Incubation and Release of Drug-Loaded Oil in Water Nanoemulsion

Concetta Di Natale; Vincenza De Gregorio; Elena Lagreca; Francesca Mauro; Brunella Corrado; Raffaele Vecchione; Paolo Antonio Netti

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2022.851893

Engineered Bacterial Cellulose Nanostructured Matrix for Incubation and Release of Drug-Loaded Oil in Water Nanoemulsion

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2022 Mar 9:10:851893. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.851893. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Concetta Di Natale^{1

2

3}, Vincenza De Gregorio^{1

2}, Elena Lagreca^{2

3}, Francesca Mauro^{2

3}, Brunella Corrado^{1

2}, Raffaele Vecchione², Paolo Antonio Netti^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Biomaterials, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.
² Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Naples, Italy.
³ Department of Chemical Materials, Industrial Production Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy.

Abstract

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a highly pure form of cellulose produced by bacteria, which possesses numerous advantages such as good mechanical properties, high chemical flexibility, and the ability to assemble in nanostructures. Thanks to these features, it achieved a key role in the biomedical field and in drug delivery applications. BC showed its ability to modulate the release of several drugs and biomolecules to the skin, thus improving their clinical outcomes. This work displays the loading of a 3D BC nanonetwork with an innovative drug delivery nanoemulsion system. BC was optimized by static culture of SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) and characterized by morphological and ultrastructural analyses, which indicate a cellulose fiber diameter range of 30-50 nm. BC layers were then incubated at different time points with a nanocarrier based on a secondary nanoemulsion (SNE) previously loaded with a well-known antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent, namely, coenzyme-Q10 (Co-Q10). Incubation of Co-Q10-SNE in the BC nanonetwork and its release were analyzed by fluorescence spectroscopy.

Keywords: antioxidant; bacterial cellulose; drug delivery; nanocellulose network; nanoemulsion.