Improved stability and skin permeability of sodium hyaluronate-chitosan multilayered liposomes by Layer-by-Layer electrostatic deposition for quercetin delivery

Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technology, based on the electrostatic interaction of polyelectrolytes, is used to improve the stability of drug delivery systems. In the present study, we developed multilayered liposomes with up to 10 alternating layers based on LbL deposition of hyaluronate-chitosan for transdermal delivery. Dihexadecyl phosphate was used to provide liposomes with a negative charge; the liposomes were subsequently coated with cationic chitosan (CH) followed by anionic sodium hyaluronate (HA). The resulting particles had a cumulative size of 528.28 ± 29.22 nm and an alternative change in zeta potential. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the multilayered liposomes formed a spherical polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) after deposition. Observations in size distribution after 1 week found that the particles coated with even layers of polyelectrolytes, hyaluronate and chitosan (HA-CH), were more stable than the odd layers. Membrane stability in the presence of the surfactant Triton X-100 increased with an increase in bilayers as compared to uncoated liposomes. An increase in the number of bilayers deposited on the liposomal surface resulted in a sustained release of quercetin, with release kinetics that fit the Korsmeyer–Peppas model. In an in vitro skin permeation study, negatively charged (HA-CH)-L and positively charged CH-L were observed to have similar skin permeability, which were superior to uncoated liposomes. These results indicate that multilayered liposomes properly coated with polyelectrolytes of HA and CH by electrostatic interaction improve stability and can also function as potential drug delivery system for the transdermal delivery of the hydrophobic antioxidant quercetin.