Nanoencapsulation of oral-pharmaceutical lactoferrin using chitosan and the evaluation of stability against trypsin and pepsin and its antibacterial effect

Lactoferrin (Lf) is an oral-pharmaceutical protein with a variety of biological activities that have attracted the attention of scientists today. In this study, Lf was nano-encapsulated in chitosan biopolymer by ion gelation method with a concentration of 2.5 mg/ml of chitosan and 0.2 and 0.5 mg/ml of Lf and some physicochemical properties were evaluated using zeta potential, DLS, AFM, and SEM. Also, its stability against digestive enzymes such as pepsin and trypsin and its antibacterial effect compare to Lf on Escherichia coli were investigated. The result showed that the mean size of nano-encapsulated lactoferrin (NE-Lf) was 129.6 and 654.6 nm as well as zeta potential, +3.6 and −2.3 mV for 0.2 and 0.5 mg/ml Lf, respectively. SEM and AFM image analysis of NE-Lf showed uniform surfaces, cubic, and homogeneous in shape, as well asdispersion stability of the nanoparticles. NE-Lf had greater stability against the digestion of pepsin and trypsin than Lf. The efficiency of Lf encapsulation in chitosan was 75%. Both NE-Lf and Lf showed that they were able to reduce the growth of E. coli in a dose-dependent manner. EN-Lf was prepared in a simpler way and in lower concentrations of chitosan and Lf than previous methods.