Formulation, optimisation, and evaluation of Lornoxicam-loaded Novasomes for targeted ulcerative colitis therapy: in vitro and in vivo investigations.

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to create and assess Lornoxicam (LOR) loaded Novasomes (Novas) for the efficient treatment of ulcerative colitis. The study was performed using a 2³ factorial design to investigate the impact of several formulation variables. Three separate parameters were investigated: Surface Active agent (SAA) type (X₁), LOR concentration (X₂), and SAA: Oleic acid ratio (X₃). The dependent responses included encapsulation efficiency (Y₁: EE %), particle size (Y₂: PS), zeta potential (Y₃: ZP), and polydispersity index (Y₄: PDI). The vesicles demonstrated remarkable LOR encapsulation efficiency, ranging from 81.32 ± 3.24 to 98.64 ± 0.99%. The vesicle sizes ranged from 329 ± 9.88 to 583.4 ± 9.04 nm with high negative zeta potential values. The release pattern for Novas' LOR was biphasic and adhered to Higuchi's model. An in-vivo study assessed how LOR-Novas affected rats' acetic acid-induced ulcerative colitis (UC). The optimised LOR-Novas effectively reduced colonic ulceration (p < 0.05) and reduced the inflammatory pathway via inhibiting Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), Nuclear factor kappa β (NF-κβ) and inducible nitric oxide (iNO). At the same time, it elevated Silent information regulator-1(SIRT-1) and reduced glutathione (GSH) colon contents. Thus, the current study suggested that the formulation of LOR-Novas may be a viable treatment for ulcerative colitis.