NANOTECHNOLOGY APPLIED TO INCREASE AGENT ACTIVITY WITH ANTIMICROBIAN POTENTIAL: AN ANTIVIRAL APPROACH AND ANTIFUNGAL
Nanoparticles; poly (lactic acid); chloroquine; herpes simplex virus; 1,3-distearyl-2-oleyl glycerol (TG1); phytol; Candida spp
Nanoparticles have the ability to improve pharmacological properties of molecules such as chloroquine (CQ) and phytol (PHY). Organic nanoparticles can be made from polymers or lipids. Polymeric nanoparticles (NP) and solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN) have been widely studied as a source of an alternative therapeutic for viral and fungal diseases. Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and Candida yeast are known to be microorganisms that cause severe infections in immunocompromised patients and can lead to fatalities. The aim of our study was to develop and monitor chloroquine-loaded poly (lactic acid) (PLA) NP (CQ-NP) to improve the effectiveness of CQ in anti-HSV-1 activity; as well as, phytol-loaded NLS (SLN-PHY) produced from the lipid naturally occurring 1,3-distearyl-2-oleyl glycerol (TG1) and then evaluate anti-Candida activity by determining minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). The nanoparticles produced were monitored using dynamic light scattering (DLS), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and encapsulation efficiency (EE) of CQ and PHY. As results we have that all systems size is <300 nm, PdI <0.2 and encapsulation efficiency> 60%. Antiviral tests were performed by plaque reduction assay using acyclovir (ACV) as positive control. The anti-Candida assays were performed against seven reference strains and eight clinical strains and fluconazole was used as a positive control. Antiviral tests revealed greater efficacity of CQ-NP compared to CQ and ACV at concentrations less than 20 µg/m (p <0.001). MIC tests revealed that SLN-PHY were able to improve phytol activity and MIC 100% were achieved at concentrations ranging from 0.24 and 0.40 µg/mL for both types of strains. Therefore, it can be inferred that the formulation of different nanoparticles was successfully employed, and that NP-CQ being able to increase CQ antiviral activity and SLN-PHY being able to increase phytol's anti-Candida activity.