Avaliação da liberação in vitro do ácido ferúlico em formulações cosméticas utilizando membrana sintética e biomimética

Abstract

Ferulic acid (PA) is a phenolic compound, being a plant constituent present in the cell wall of plants, recognized for conferring photoprotection and antioxidant action, neutralizing free radicals that can cause oxidative damage to cell membranes and DNA. In the development of topical formulations, the cutaneous release assays are a fast, lowcost test, which enable preliminary results for application of new active substances. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the release of gel and cream gel cosmetic formulations containing 0.5% AF through Franz diffusion cells, using synthetic membrane and impregnated membrane with lipid solution. AF release was quantified directly through UHPLC (Ultra High Performance Liquid Chromatograph). Under the evaluated experimental conditions, it was found that the gel formulation released a greater amount of active in a shorter time interval, while the gel-cream formulation presented a smaller and slower release. At the end of the study, it was possible to observe that possibly this behavior occurred due to the lipophilic characteristic of PA, which favors a faster release when in predominantly aqueous environment such as gel formulation. The biomimetic membrane (impregnated) conferred greater resistance to the diffusion of PA, causing distinct release behaviors between formulations, however, this difference does not invalidate its use, where the choice of formulation occurs according to the intended purposes.