Hybrid polymeric microspheres for enhancing the encapsulation of phenylethyl resorcinol

Abstract

Phenylethyl resorcinol (PR) has been known to allow the whitening effect by inhibiting formation of tyrosinase. PR has solubility of 4.05 ± 0.02 mg/g for water and log P of 3.017, proposed an amphiphilic substance. Hybrid PLGA microspheres with oil (HPMSs) have been used to improve encapsulation efficiency (EE) of hydrophilic molecules and control the release of them. The solubility (618.3 ± 22.29 mg/g) of PR was the highest in Capryol^TM 90. The formulations (F6 and F`6) were selected after evaluation with EE and the released % (w/w) at 8 h. HPMSs showed 40% (w/w) increase of EE compared to that in CPMSs. Retention study on rat skin at 12 h resulted in that PR of HPMSs was remained more than that of CPMSs in dermal layer forming the melanin. HPMSs showed 1.4-fold increase of tyrosinase inhibition significantly in melanoma cells than that of the PR solution at 24 h.

Keywords:

• PLGA microsphere
• hybrid PLGA microsphere
• encapsulation
• whitening effect
• phenylethyl resorcinol

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interests. The authors are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Basic Science Research Program (2016R1A2B4011294) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Republic of Korea.