Therapeutic Role of Deep Eutectic Solvents Based on Menthol and Saturated Fatty Acids on Wound Healing

Abstract

The breakthroughs achieved in green solvents promote the emergence of therapeutic deep eutectic solvents (THEDES), which possess intriguing possible applications in the biomedical field. Herein, the main aim was to unravel the biomedical potential of hydrophobic THEDES based in menthol and saturated fatty acids with different chain lengths (e.g., stearic acid (SA), myristic acid (MA), and lauric acid (LA)). Our comprehensive strategy resulted in the thermophysical characterization of different formulations, which allow one to identify the most suitable molar ratio, as well as the intermolecular interactions behind the successful formation of THEDES. The evaluation of their biological performance was also performed toward bacteria and HaCaT cells. Among the different formulations of THEDES, the one based on menthol and SA establishes stronger hydrogen bonding interactions, being also the most promising formulation because it did not elicit any relevant cytotoxicity, and potentiated wound healing, while presenting antibacterial properties against Staphylococcus epidermis and Staphylococcus aureus strains, some of which were methicillin resistant. This work provides clues on the future use of THEDES based on menthol:SA in wound dressings.

Optimal Design of THEDES Based on Perillyl Alcohol and Ibuprofen

“…The depression of the melting point is highly dependent on the starting components, molar ratio, lattice energy, intermolecular interactions and entropy [ 48 , 59 , 60 ]. Similar data was obtained for the other THEDES systems, being a plausible reason for the establishment of intermolecular interactions between the counterparts and the supramolecular arrangement of the counterparts while in THEDES form [ 39 , 42 , 43 ]. Overall, the DSC data are in good agreement with the naked-eye observations, being also aligned with previous data reported in the literature for the THEDES based on limonene:IBU [ 35 ].…”

“…This depression is majorly attributed to the establishment of hydrogen-bond interactions between the compounds, although electrostatic interactions and Van der Waals forces can also play an important role [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 ]. When one of the system components is an API, it is hence called a therapeutic deep eutectic system (THEDES) [ 39 , 42 , 43 ]. Their potential goes way beyond being a mere solvent for chemical engineering processes.…”

Recent advances in green solvents for lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment: Potential of choline chloride (ChCl) based solvents

“…The strong hydrogen bond interactions are accredited for the similar benefits exhibited by DESs/LTTMs as compared to ILs while at the same time overcome the limitations of conventional ILs. Although both DESs/LTTMs and ILs present highly similar core characteristics, DESs/LTTMs are deemed a more complete representation of the green chemistry benchmarks, rendering LTTMs a compelling interest as the more favourable alternative compared to their analogue ILs (Silva et al, 2019).…”

“…The applications of DESs/LTTMs were also reported in fields of chemical and polymer synthesis, metal electrodeposition, nanomaterials, CO 2 capturing, biomass and biofuels processing, biomedicine, pharmaceutics, food processing, cosmetics, etc. (Ezgi Ünlü & Takaç, 2020;Marcus, 2019;Paiva et al, 2014;Silva et al, 2019). Some other applications of ChCl-based solvents include: i. Microalgal biomass pre-treatment for the extraction of cellular components by using ChCl/1,2-Propanediol/Water (Cicci et al, 2017).…”

Structural and Transport Properties of Binary Mixtures of Deep Eutectic Solvent (Ethaline) with Primary Alcohols: A Molecular Dynamics Study

“…DESs have several benefits over RTILs such as their biocompatibility, relatively less expensive, easy to prepare, and easy availability. Due to these properties, DESs have been investigated for different applications in diverse areas [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]. For the development of DESs based processes, understanding of DESs thermodynamics and their physicochemical properties of mixed DESs with common organic solvents such as water, alcohol or alkanes are of keen interest.…”