Development of porous cellulose hydrogel for enhanced transdermal delivery of liquiritin and liquiritigenin as licorice flavonoids

Abstract

Licorice, widely used as a herbal medicine, has flavonoids such as liquiritin and its aglycone, liquiritigenin that show anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Licorice flavonoid-loaded cellulose hydrogels were prepared as carriers for skin drug delivery, and their properties were investigated. The porous cellulose hydrogel was made by reacting cellulose with epichlorohydrin as a cross-linking agent in NaOH/urea(1∼10%) solutions. Through studies on the Theological properties and water uptake of the hydrogel, a NaOH/urea(6%) solution was established as being optimum for the synthesis of the cellulose hydrogel containing liquiritin and liquiritigenin. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations of a cross-section of the prepared hydrogel indicated its porosity. In particular, in skin permeation experiments using a Franz diffusion cell, hydrogel containing the licorice flavonoids showed remarkable transdermal permeation compared to the control group. These results indicate that porous cellulose hydrogel is a potential drug delivery system to enhance the skin permeation of licorice flavonoids.