Issue 12, 2021

Effect of hydrophobically modified PEO polymers (PEO-dodecyl) on oil/water microemulsion properties: in vitro and in silico investigations

Abstract

Microemulsions are excellent systems for transdermal delivery of multifunctional drugs because they have the potential to improve drug absorption/permeation and handling limitations. Biocompatible polymers are used as a coating of microemulsions to avoid the interactions that can occur between the microemulsions and the skin. Thus, they protect and lubricate these transporter nanovesicles. In this paper, we studied decane/water microemulsions covered with hydrophobically modified PEO polymer (PEO-m). To reveal the effect of hydrophobically modified PEO (PEO-m) polymer on the shape, the micro-arrangement and the dynamics of the microemulsions, we used an integrated strategy combining Molecular Dynamics simulation (MD), Small-Angle Neutron Scattering experiments (SANS), and the Ornstein–Zernike integral equations with the Hypernetted Chain (HNC) closure relation. We determined the microemulsion shape in vitro using the renormalized intensities spectra from SANS experiments. We discussed the micro arrangements of microemulsions, in vitro and in silico, employing the pair correlation function g(r) and the structure factor S(q), obtained from the three approaches with good agreement. Thus, we used the validated MD simulations to calculate the microemulsion's dynamics properties that we discussed using the mean-squared displacement (MSD) and the diffusion coefficients. We found that the presence of moderate quantities of PEO-m, from 4 to 12 PEO-m per microemulsion, does not influence the microemulsion shape, increases the stability of the microemulsion, and slightly decrease the dynamics. Our in vitro and in silico results suggest that polymer incorporation, which has interesting in vivo implications, has no disadvantageous effects on the microemulsion properties.

Graphical abstract: Effect of hydrophobically modified PEO polymers (PEO-dodecyl) on oil/water microemulsion properties: in vitro and in silico investigations

Associated articles

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Nov 2020
Accepted
01 Feb 2021
First published
10 Feb 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2021,11, 7059-7069

Effect of hydrophobically modified PEO polymers (PEO-dodecyl) on oil/water microemulsion properties: in vitro and in silico investigations

M. Khatouri, R. Ahfir, M. Lemaalam, S. El Khaoui, A. Derouiche and M. Filali, RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 7059 DOI: 10.1039/D0RA09804C

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