L-Ascorbic acid and phosphatidylcholine complex vesicles: formation and elucidation of their biological activities, and their molecular interactions

Abstract

The aim is to prepare, characterise, and evaluate the biological activities and key molecular interactions of L-ascorbic acid and phosphatidylcholine (PC-AA) complex vesicles. PC-AA complexes were prepared and characterised using DLS, TEM, FTIR, UV-Vis, in-vitro release, bioactivities, and cytotoxicity. The key interactions of the AA with the PC were studied with MD simulations. PC-AA complex provides improved stability towards the degradation of AA in aqueous solutions while also slowing its release profile. The PC-AA complexes with an optimal molar ratio of PC: AA = 2.5:1 was shown to have a hydrodynamic diameter of 368.67 ± 4.65 nm and an EE of 68.16 ± 0.23%. At low concentration, the PC-AA complexes have no toxicity towards human dermal fibroblast cells over 48 h. Importantly, MD suggests that AA only forms the PC-AA complex when in its neutral form which is the desired active form. PC-AA complex could be a potential active to use in medicinal and cosmeceutical applications.

Keywords:

• L-ascorbic acid
• phosphatidylcholine
• hydrogen-bond interaction
• anti-oxidation
• molecular dynamic simulations

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the ThaiSC center, NSTDA, Thailand and TABCluster, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand for providing us the computational resource for the MD simulations.

Disclosure statement

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