The Nanostructured lipid carrier gel of Oroxylin A reduced UV-induced skin oxidative stress damage

Oxidative stress damage caused by sun exposure damages the appearance and function of the skin, which is one of the essential inducements of skin aging and even leads to skin cancer. Oroxylin A (OA) is a flavonoid with excellent antioxidant activity and has protective effects against photoaging induced by UV irradiation. However, the strong barrier function of the skin stratum corneum prevents transdermal absorption of the drug, which limits the application of OA in dermal drug delivery. Studies have shown that nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC) can promote not only transdermal absorption of drugs but also increase drug stability and control drug release efficiency, which has broad prospects for clinical applications. In this paper, NLC loaded with OA (OA-NLC) was prepared in order to improve the skin permeability and stability of OA. In vitro studies revealed that OA-NLC had better therapeutic effects than OA solution (OA-Sol) in the cellular model of UVB radiation. OA-Sol and OA-NLC were immobilized in a hydrogel matrix to facilitate application to the dorsal skin of mice. It was found that OA-NLC-gel showed significant antioxidant and anti-apoptotic activity compared to OA-Sol-gel, which was able to protect against skin damage in mice after UV radiation. These results suggest that OA-NLC can improve the deficiencies of OA in skin delivery and show better resistance to UV-induced oxidative damage. The application of OA-NLC to skin delivery systems has good prospects and deserves further development and investigation.