Design of an oral nanotherapeutic galantamine-loaded nanoemulsion composite system for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive disorder that degenerates neural pathways in the brain. Alzheimer’s Disease continues to gain interest on new therapeutics with numerous pharmaceutical agents formulated to target the Central Nervous System (CNS) – namely the four acetylcholinesterase inhibitors which include galantamine, rivastigmine, donepezil and memantine. Nanotechnology focuses on the design and synthesis of nanomaterials which are functionally organised with at least one dimension of no more than 100 nm. The use of nanoparticles in medicine can be attributed to the fact that the human body contains numerous biochemical and biological mechanisms that occur at the nanoscale. Nanoparticles provide substantial support for the delivery of various macromolecules. Nanotechnologies are classified into different forms, which include nanotubes, nanofibers, polymeric nanoparticles, nanoemulsions, nanomicelles, and nanoliposomes. Alternative nanocomposites such as nanoemulsions are documented as highly selective delivery methods of dyes, lipophilic dyes and drugs of low molecular weight. Additionally, therapeutic agent-loaded nanoemulsions have revealed enhanced uptake of loaded therapeutic agents in degenerated cells significant to AD. The galantamine-loaded nanoemulsion in this study displayed desirable properties such as nanoparticulate size of 10.54 nm, 11.01 nm, 133.2 nm and 305.1 nm. Additionally, the galantamine-loaded nanoemulsion’s drug release profile, which included a burst release of 66.31% over 6 hours and total controlled release of 68.07% in 24 hours, was also observed in this study. These promising results, as well as those obtained from further evaluations such as thermal stability and chemical interactions during formulation development, support the design of galanatamine-loaded nanoemulsion composite systems that can facilitate the treatment of AD.