Revealing the potential of Didodecyldimethylammonium bromide as efficient scaffold for fabrication of nano liquid crystalline structures

• D12DAB nanoparticles were prepared by micro emulsification methodology.
• Effect of compositional variation on microemulsion microstructure was studied.
• Hemolytic activity of D12DAB nanoparticles was determined.

To exploit the potential of Didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (D12DAB) as a core lipidic constituent, an attempt was made to fabricate and optimize cationic nanostructured lipid carriers (cNLCs) using a cost-effective microemulsification methodology. Designed composition was optimized by studying the effect of different microemulsion components on D12DAB cNLCs characteristics. ​Spherical shaped D12DAB cNLCs were obtained with an average size of ∼160 nm and zeta potential of +30.2 mV. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) depicted the presence of thermotropic character, whereas polarized optical microscopy confirmed the mesophase like behavior of D12DAB based cNLCs. In addition, hemolysis analysis revealed that the toxicity was concentration dependent as LC50 was reached at a concentration of 50 μg/mL of cNLCs. This class of cNLCs is expected to become a potent candidate for a broad spectrum of medicaments as carriers, targeting for pharmaceutical and medicinal purposes, due to the combination of a hard lipid with a soft lipid, where the liquid crystalline structure of the lipid co-exists.

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