Figure 1.
Physico-chemical characterization of flavonoid-loaded lipid nanoemulsions. (A) Photographs depicting naringenin dispersed in water (Nar/H2O), dissolved in ethanol (Nar/EtOH) or encapsulated into lipid nanoemulsions (Nar/LNs). Empty lipid nanoemulsions are also shown (LNs). (B) Particle size distribution by intensity for prepared nanoemulsions as a result of dynamic light scattering (DLS) measurements. (C) Zeta potential distribution by electrophoretic light scattering (ELS) measurements for non-targeted and Vascular Cell Adhesion Protein 1 (VCAM-1) targeted nanoemulsions either empty (LNs and V-LNs) or loaded with naringenin (Nar/LNs and V-Nar/LNs) or hesperetin (Hesp/LNs and V-Hesp/LNs). (D) Increased peptide: lipid coupling ratio proportionally shifts zeta potential to more negative values. (E) Average hydrodynamic diameter and zeta potential of empty and flavonoid-loaded nanoparticles (non-targeted and VCAM-1 targeted). Data are means ± standard deviation (S.D.) from three independent nanoemulsions samples with triplicate measurements each. Coupling ratio in (B,C,E) is 1 µg peptide:1 µmol total lipid. The last row in the table indicates the parameters of Rhodamine-labelled nanoemulsions used in uptake experiments.