Toxicity evaluation and nanoencapsulation of Brazilian red propolis extract

Brazilian red propolis (BRP) is a natural compound with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antitumor activities. The dose-dependent toxicity and low penetration of its majority biomolecules makes a challenge to BRP topical administration. These disadvantages can be overcome to BRP encapsulation in nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC). Thus, we evaluate the toxicity and antioxidant activity of BRP and its fractions and the extract was encapsulated in NLC. The toxicity of BRP and its fractions (acetate, dichloro and hexane) was evaluated in vitro and in vivo. For 3T3 fibroblasts, all samples showed similar toxicity but for the alternative method, in Galleria mellonela, the values were different. The antioxidant potential was evaluated through DPPH method and hexane fraction showed the best potential. The BRP extract was encapsulated in NLC by emulsion and sonication method using Box-Behnken Design. The NLC presented size of 135nm and PDI of 0.180 and was able to encapsulate 40mg of extract (Size: 138.2; PDI: 0.113).