Hydroxyethyl cellulose hydrogel for skin delivery of khellin loaded in ascosomes: Characterization, in vitro/in vivo performance and acute toxicity

Aim of this work was to prepare and characterize a hydroxyethyl cellulose hydrogel loaded with ascosomes, nanovesicles based on phosphatidylcholine plus ascorbyl octanoate (ASC8) or ascorbyl decanoate (ASC1), and khellin (2 mg/mL), for topical use. ASC10 vesicles were selected for the hydrogel formulation because of the best biopharmaceutical characteristics, namely size of 115 nm, PDI of 0.26, ζ-potential of −40.1 meV, EE% of 90.2%. After 24 h...