Performance evaluation of non-ionic surfactant based tazarotene encapsulated proniosomal gel for the treatment of psoriasis

•Proniosomal gel showed favorable vesicle size and good encapsulation efficiency•Proniosomal gel showed prolonged release of tazarotene.•Proniosomal gel indicated higher in vitro drug permeation and retention effects.•Proniosomal gel demonstrated no erythema during skin irritation studies•Proniosomal gel revealed that increase in orthokeratosis strengthened.

The study aims to explore the potential of non-ionic surfactant based proniosomal gel (PNG) in improving the topical delivery of tazarotene by in vitro and in vivo studies. The PNG was prepared using coacervation phase separation method composed of span, stearylamine, cholesterol, and lecithin. The PNG demonstrated favorable vesicle size (3.26±0.22μm) and percent encapsulation efficiency (49.50±2.3%). The PNG was evaluated for viscosity which indicated that the ratio of span:cholesterol:stearylamine (64.5:30.5:5 mM) demonstrated no any fluctuations in viscosity. The scanning electron micrographs exhibited spherical vesicles with sharp boundaries. The in vitro drug release through cellulose membrane and rat's skin were found to be in the following order of the formulation code A2>A4>A3>A5 and A4>A2>A3>A5, respectively, which showed the prolonged release of entrapped tazarotene. Further, in vitro drug permeation and retention studies revealed that formulations A2 and A4 showed the higher percent of drug permeation whereas formulations A3 and A5 showed the higher percent of drug retention through rat's skin. Moreover, PNG A2 and A4 formulations demonstrated good stability characteristics at different temperature conditions. The stability in the presence of detergent revealed that no any abrupt change in turbidity. The skin irritation studies performed with formulations A2 and A4 showed no erythema compared with the plain PNG. The male Albino NMRI mice tail model was used to performed in vivo skin histological examination which revealed that an increase in the orthokeratosis strengthened. Thus, all the results concluded that surfactant, Span 60 based PNG formulations have shown a good ability to increase drug accumulation in the various skin layers and more potential carrier for topical delivery of tazarotene for an effective therapy of psoriasis.

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