Investigating the potential of employing bilosomes as a novel vesicular carrier for transdermal delivery of tenoxicam

Bilosomes represent an evolving vesicular carrier that have been explored for oral vaccines delivery based on its ability to resist enzymes and bile salts in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT). Bilosomes vesicles are formed of bilayer membrane of non-ionic surfactant molecules encompassing bile salts. Although, bilosomes have not been proposed for transdermal drug delivery, this carrier seems to have promising potential in this regard. Accordingly, the aim of this investigation was to assess the capability and safety of utilizing bilosomes for transdermal delivery of tenoxicam (TX) as a model drug. A 3122 full factorial design was adopted to study the effects of different formulation parameters on bilosomes properties and select the optimal formulation using Design-Expert software. The selected formulation displayed nano-sized spherical vesicles (242.5 +/- 6.43 nm) with reasonable entrapment efficiency percent (68.33 +/- 2.33%). Confocal laser scanning microscopy confirmed the capability of the flourolabeled bilosomes to penetrate deep within the skin. Both, ex vivo permeation and in vivo skin deposition studies confirmed the superiority of bilosomes over drug solution in delivering TX transdermally. In addition, in vivo histopathological study proved the safety of topically applied bilosomes. In summary, the highlighted results confirmed that bilosomes can be further adopted for delivering drugs transdermally. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.