Avaliação reológica de géis tópicos de HPMC e polissacarídeos do cogumelo Agaricus blazei Murill visando aplicação em cicatrização de feridas

Abstract

Lesions in the anatomical structure of the skin, causing wounds, have been a public health problem, being linked to the aging of the population, besides being expensive for the health system. Thus, therapeutic actions aimed at the use of natural polysaccharides are potential alternatives to conventional treatment to solve this problem. The pharmaceutical form addressed in this study is a cellulose-derived gel, where the polymer of choice was hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC), which is a semisynthetic polymer of hydrophilic matrix derived from cellulose. Also, the mushroom Agaricus blazei Murill (ABM), native to Brazil, has pharmacological properties, mainly due to the polysaccharides extracted from its fruiting body, in structural conformation α-(1,4)-glucans and β-(1,3)-(1,6)-glucans, as well as for its glycoprotein complex. Given this finding, HPMC gels were developed at concentrations of 1.5%, 2%, and 3% m m-1 with and without the ABM polysaccharides, with the ABM concentration being fixed at 1% m m-1. FT-IR characterization demonstrated major aspects of structural groups of the studied components, where characteristic fingerprint regions of each compound were observed, as well as the interactions between ABM polysaccharides and HPMC for HA gel 1.5% m m-1. The morphologies of the gels were observed by SEM, where the influence of the mushroom polysaccharides in increasing the porosity that will reflect in the accommodation and release of actives was perceived. For rheological tests, the flow of pseudoplastic type can be observed for all gels, where, by the power law this behavior was confirmed, since values of n < 1 were observed for all gels, suggesting more structured gels. Also, the ABM polysaccharides provided greater viscoelasticity of the gels, since they influence a more liquid-like behavior. While it could be noticed the direct influence of the concentration of HPMC in the more solid-like behavior of the gels. Thus, gels with a HPMC concentration of 1.5% are more interesting for further studies, considering that it is the lowest concentration of the polymer that probably achieves mucoadhesive mechanism, applicability and spreadability on the injured tissue, in order to promote a slow release of actives, aiming to minimize any inflammatory process that may be caused by the topical use of a hard gel.