Soybean Oil in Nifedipine-Loaded Nanostructured Lipid Carriers: Enhancing Drug Loading and Release

Solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) have been developed as an alternative carrier system to overcome the drawbacks associated with traditionally colloidal dispersions, such as physical stability, drug leakage during storage, protection of chemically labile drug molecules from environment and upscale production techniques 1,2 .They are sub-micron colloidal carriers dispersed either in water or in an aqueous surfactant solution, allowing the preparation to avoid any organic solvents.SLNs are simply prepared either with solid lipid, which are biocompatible and biodegradable, along with emulsifiers as stabilizing agents 3 .Thus, SLNs exhibit less acute and chronic toxicity than other polymeric nanoparticles.Furthermore, SLNs have the capability of modulating drug release, allowing both controlled and sustained release 4 .There are numerous types of solid lipid that have been studied, such as Compritol 888 ATO 5,6 , glyceryl monostearate 7,8 , stearic acid 9,10 , trimyristin 11,12 , Imwitor 900 13,14 and Dynasan 15 .SLNs have been shown to improve the bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs, including raloxifene 5 , cannabidiol 8 and docetaxel 11 .However, there are some limitations of SLNs, such as drug loading capacity (DL) due to the solubility of drug in the solid lipid matrix, drug expulsion due to transformation into a crystalline structure, and the formation of a perfect crystal during storage 16 .To overcome these limitations of SLNs, nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) were developed as a new generation of lipid carriers 17 .NLCs are produced