Glutathione and S-nitrosoglutathione in alginate/chitosan nanoparticles: Cytotoxicity

Nitric oxide (NO) is involved in several physiological processes, such as the control of vascular tone, the immune response and the wound healing process. Thus, there is a great interest in the development of NO-releasing drugs and in matrices which are able to stabilize and release NO locally in different tissues. Thiols, such as glutathione (GSH), are ready nitrosated to form the NO donors S-nitrosothiols (RSNOs). In this work, GSH, a precursor of the NO donor S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO), was encapsulated into a mucoadhesive combination of alginate/chitosan nanoparticles. The encapsulated GSH was nitrosated in the alginate/chitosan nanoparticles by adding sodium nitrite, leading to the formation of encapsulated GSNO. The cytotoxicity characterization of the nanoparticles containing either GSH or GSNO showed that these materials were completely non cytotoxic to cellular viability. These results show that this novel nanostructure biomaterial has a great potential to be use in biomedical applications where NO has a therapeutical effect.