The pulmonary protective potential of vanillic acid-loaded TPGS-liposomes: modulation of miR-217/MAPK/NF-κb signalling pathway

Abstract

The aim is to investigate the possible pulmonary protective effect of vanillic acid (VA) in liposome-TPGS nanoparticles, to overcome VA’s poor bioavailability. VA was successfully extracted. Liposomes were prepared using thin film hydration. Central composite design was adopted for optimisation of liposomes to get the maximum entrapment efficiency (EE%) and the minimum mean diameter, where the liposomes were further modified with TPGS, and tested for PDI, zeta-potential, and in-vitro drug release. In-vivo study on mice with LPS-acute pulmonary toxicity was tested. TPGS-modified VA-liposomes showed EE% of 69.35 ± 1.23%, PS of 201.7 ± 3.23 nm, PDI of 0.19 ± 0.02, and zeta-potential of −32.2 ± 0.32 mv. A sustained drug release of the TPGS-modified VA-liposomes was observed compared to standard VA, and a pulmonary-protective effect through decreasing miR-217 expression with subsequent anti-inflammatory effect through suppression of MAPK and PI3K/NF-κB pathways was also demonstrated in the current study. TPGS-modified VA-liposomes showed an enhanced bioavailability and a sustained drug release with promising pulmonary protective effects against acute pulmonary injury diseases.

Keywords:

• Vanillic acid
• liposomes
• pulmonary toxicity
• miR217
• MAPK

Acknowledgement

The researchers are grateful of Dr. Adel Bakeer’s involvement in the histological analysis of the lung tissues used in this study. He is a professor of pathology at faculty of veterinary medicine, Cairo University.

Ethical approval

The ethics committee of the pharmacy faculty at October University for Modern Sciences and Arts (MSA) approved the study (Approval no. PT15/REC15/2023PD).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.