Zeta potential changing self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery systems: A newfangled approach for enhancing oral bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs

The mucus is a defensive barrier for different drug-loaded systems. To overcome this obstacle, the crucial factor is the surface charge. Due to mucus negative charge behavior; it was revealed that negatively charged formulations can move across mucus, whereas positively charged nanoformulations could not diffuse via mucus due to interactions. However, cellular intake of negatively charged nanoformulations to the epithelium by endocytosis is less prominent as compared to positively charged carriers. Self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) improve the drug permeability of drugs, especially which have poor oral drug solubility. Moreover, SEDDS have the ability to reduce the degradation of drugs in the GI tract. Currently, drug carrier systems that can shift zeta potential from negative to positive were developed. The benefits of inducing zeta potential changing approach are that negatively charged nanoformulations permeate quickly across the mucus and surface charges reversed to positive at epithelium surface to increase cellular uptake. Among various systems of drug delivery, zeta potential changing SEDDS seem to signify a promising approach as they can promptly diffuse over mucus due to their smaller size and shape distortion ability. Due to such findings, mucus permeation and drug diffusion may improve by the mixture of the zeta potential changing approach and SEDDS.