Efficacy and mechanism of methyl salicylate in the enhancement of skin delivery of herbal medicines
- Author:
Wang JINGYAN
1
,
2
;
Zhao XINYU
;
Chen JIAJIA
;
Li XIN
;
Hao DOUDOU
;
Li TINGTING
;
Mei KAI
;
Lan YI
;
Wu QING
Author Information
1. Department of TCM Pharmaceutics,School of Chinese Materia Medica,Beijing University of Chinese Medicine,Beijing,102488,China
2. Beijing Children's Hospital,Capital Medical University,Beijing,100045,China
- Keywords:
Methyl salicylate;
Transdermal delivery;
Penetration enhancer;
Stratum corneum;
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
- From:
Journal of Traditional Chinese Medical Sciences
2021;8(4):336-342
- CountryChina
- Language:Chinese
-
Abstract:
Objective:To elucidate the molecular mechanism(s) by which methyl salicylate enhances the skin de-livery of herbal ingredients with diverse lipophilicity.Methods:The toxicity of methyl salicylate on skin cell lines was evaluated using the MTT assay.The Franz diffusion cell method was used to measure the permeability enhancing activities of methyl salicylate for five herbal ingredients with a range of lipophilicities.The interaction between methyl salicylate and the stratum corneum (SC) was observed by using an infrared spectroscopy technique.Moreover,the solu-bilities and SC-vehicle partition coefficient were determined to monitor the impact of methyl salicylate on the drug thermodynamic activities and partition into the SC layer,respectively.Results:Compared with azone (1-dodecylazacycloheptan-2-one),methyl salicylate showed lower toxicity to skin cells in terms of the ICso values.The in vitro skin permeation studies showed that methyl salicylate could greatly improve the cumulative amounts or steady state flux of the selected model drugs with the exception of osthole,which indicated that methyl salicylate was prone to promote the skin delivery of hydrophilic drugs.The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy studies revealed that methyl salicylate mainly interacted with SC lipids,leading to the disruption of the orderly arrangement of the SC.In addition,methyl salicylate had no obvious effect on the drug thermodynamic activity and partition into the SC.Conclusion:Methyl salicylate could effectively promote the skin delivery of relatively hydrophilic in-gredients in externally used traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) without obvious cytotoxicity.
