Anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity improvement of lycopene from guava on nanoemulsifying system

Abstract

The nanoemulsion system can improve stability to antioxidant molecules when compared to the isolated molecule. Therefore, this study aimed to establish conditions on thermal stability, chemical characterization, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity of lycopene nanoemulsion. Different chemical assays were used to characterize the lycopene nanoemulsion (LN) and the purified lycopene from guava (LPG) as HPLC, UV-Vis, DLS, and ABTS to analyze the antioxidant activity of lycopene nanoemulsion. To test its thermal stability as an antioxidant in nanoemulsion it was used the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques. The carrageenan-induced paw edema model in Swiss mice and histopathological analysis were used to evaluate anti-inflammatory activity. Emulsion with a mean droplet size of z-Average diameter 167.1 d.nm was produced. UV-vis detected λ_max = 447.1, 473.7, and 505.3 nm to lycopene from guava and HPLC-DAD analysis by C₃₀ at 472 nm identified the presence of lycopene in the nanoemulsion. This lycopene nanoemulsion presented thermal stability at room temperature, as well as on concentration when stored for one year. Also significantly inhibited (p < 0.05) the edema formation, with maximum inhibitory effect at 50 mg/kg by oral and intraperitoneal route and reduced neutrophil migration in paw tissue. The lycopene nanoemulsion can be a potential candidate for investigation and therapy of various diseases, including inflammation because this lycopene nanoemulsion presented therapeutics application for inflammatory diseases, and has also potential to be used as ointment and/or cream additive for topic applications.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Anti-inflammatory
• lycopene
• nanoemulsion
• thermal behavior

Declaration of interest

The authors have declared no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

A. Amorim is grateful to CAPES by PDSE process n° 99999.004236/2014-09 in the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) and to the Center for Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry (CBQF). BIOTEC is grateful to Phytobios LTDA and Centroflora Group, for the reagents kindly supplied during the development of this work.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Funding

A. Oliveira is grateful to the Foundation to Science and Technology (FCT) for the PhD grant SFRH/BD/75041/2010. A. Mafud is grateful to FAPESP (grant 2014/02282-6). Y. Mascarenhas was supported by CNPq (Grant 165177/2014-4). A. G. Vasconcelos is grateful to CAPES for grant n° 1713871. This work was supported by National Funds from FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia through project PEst-OE/EQB/LA0016/2013.