Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Penetration and pharmacokinetics of ferulic acid after dermal administration

Jie Bai, Chang Yang, Shou-Ying Du , Peng-Yue Li, Bo-yu Dong, Bing Yang, Xiao-nan Chen, Ya-hua Cui

Department of TCM Pharmaceutics, School of Chinese Pharmacy, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, No. 11 North Third Ring Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100029, China;

For correspondence:- Shou-Ying Du Email: dusy@bucm.edu.cn

Accepted: 21 March 2019 Published: 30 April 2019

Citation: Bai J, Yang C, Du S, Li P, Dong B, Yang B, et al. Penetration and pharmacokinetics of ferulic acid after dermal administration. Trop J Pharm Res 2019; 18(4):843-849 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i4.23

© 2019 The authors.
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Abstract

Purpose: To study the in vitro penetration and in vivo pharmacokinetics of ferulic acid (FA), and the correlation between them after dermal administration.

Methods: Franz diffusion cell was used to study in vitro penetration of FA. The concentration of FA in the Franz receiver solution was assessed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Prior to in vivo pharmacokinetics experiments, probe recovery was validated with respect to influencing factors such as flow rate, FA concentration, within-day stability and reproducibility of the probes. In in vivo pharmacokinetic experiment, six male CD-1 hairless mice were used. The micro-dialysis (MD) probe was implanted in the dermis of the rat skin, and dialysates from probe outlet were quantified directly by HPLC. In in vivo studies, deconvolution methods were used to determine the relationship between in vitro and in vivo data, and the correlation coefficient of linear equations.

Results: There was significant effect of pH (5 ~ 8) on the penetration of FA. Increase in pH caused commensurate decrease in permeability. The C_max of FA was 300.74 ± 31.86 ng/mL while T_max was 138.00 ± 22.80 min after dermal administration of 1 mg/mL FA dissolved in phosphate buffered saline (PBS). The correlation coefficient (r) between in vitro and in vivo data was 0.9905.

Conclusion: Both in vivo and in vitro experiments demonstrate that FA permeates the stratum corneum of skin rapidly. The unionized form of FA shows better penetration than the ionic form. In addition, results from correlation analysis indicate that the in vitro penetration characteristics of FA can be applied to predict its in vivo pharmacokinetics.

Keywords: Ferulic acid, Dermal penetration, Microdialysis, Pharmacokinetics, Deconvolution methods