Toxicity of Hybrid Particles (PLGA-ZnO) Loaded with Lupeol and Mangiferina: Ex Vivo Model of Peripheral Cells

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the study of particles loaded with bioactive compounds as a proposed additive with potential nutraceutical effects. Therefore, our teamwork has designed and characterized different particles loaded with lupeol and mangiferin, which have shown different applications depending on the encapsulation material but maintaining their effect on topoisomerase and cyclooxygenase models. In this work, different loaded and unloaded encapsulation matrices were used to evaluate their toxicity in an ex vivo system of human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and erythrocytes. As a result, ZnO synthesized by sol–gel shows a toxic effect for any cell [1 mg/mL]; however, those elaborated with polylactide-co-glycolide (PLGA) do not induce apoptosis after 72 h of exposure; on the other hand, the lupeol standard has statistically equal effects (p < 0.05) to those of etoposide in mononuclear cells. This study demostrates the biocompatibility of materials such as PLGA [1 mg/mL] for the encapsulation of phytochemicals, with potential application as a food additive.