The Depigmentation Effect of Hydroquinone-loaded Nanostructured Lipid Carriers (NLCs) on the Rat Skin

Abstract

The goal of this research is the localization of hydroquinone (HQ) to the epidermis for the treatment ofhyperpigmentation in rat skin. For this purpose, nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) was selected for thedermal delivery of HQ. A 2 3 factorial design was used in this study, and eight NLCs were prepared witha cold homogenization technique. HQ entrapment efficiency (EE %), particle size, morphology, thermalbehavior of NLCs, and permeability parameters through rat skin with NLC in comparison with HQ aqueoussolution (HQ-S) with Franz diffusion cells were evaluated. Based on the optimization technique, the bestNLC was selected and in the in vivo experiment, the depigmentation effect of optimized NLC in comparisonwith that of HQ-S was evaluated. The results showed that the main problem for HQ permeability was fastpermeation and low concentration in the site of action. Partitioning from aqueous donor phase into skinrate was the limiting step for drug flux, and this can be solved using NLC. The decrease in maximumflux obtained by NLC was according to formulation 8. Regression analysis suggested a significant anddirect effect of the S/L ratio and the percentage of liquid lipids on the drug loading. NLC decreased drugpermeation through rat skin basically due to sustained release properties.