A new approach for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease: insulin-quantum dots

Abstract

The potential use of insulin supplementation for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) was aimed to investigate and explore CQDs as an alternative delivery system. CQDs were produced by microwave and characterised. Insulin-loaded Ins-CQDs and in-situ Gel-Ins-CQDs were developed. The in vitro release kinetics, penetrations of insulin through excised sheep nasal mucosa were determined. Toxicity of CQDs were calculated on SH-SY5Y cells. The stability and usability of the prepared formulations were assessed. The insulin release from the solution was 70.75% after 3 hours, while it was 37.51% for in-situ Gel-Ins-CQDs. IC50 value was 52 µM. The mean particle diameters of Ins-CQDs and in-situ Gel-Ins-CQDs varied between 8.35 ± 0.19 to 8.75 ± 0.03 nm during a 6-month period. Zeta potentials ranged from −31.51 ± 1.39 to −24.43 ± 0.26 mV, and PDI values were between 9.8 ± 0.01 to 5.3 ± 3.2%(SD, n = 3) for Ins-CQDs and in-situ Gel-Ins-CQDs, respectively.

Our results show that Gel-Ins-CQDs represented a controlled release over time and can be used for AD through the nasal route.

Keywords:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• carbon quantum dots
• intranasal insulin
• in-situ gel formulation

Author contributions

All authors share rights and responsibilities equally.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was granted by the Istanbul University Faculty of Pharmacy with the number TDK-2021–37536.