Preparation and Characterization of Anthocyanin Loaded Lotus Pollen Exine Nanocapsules for its Use in Oral Drug Delivery Applications

Sporopollenin-based exine capsules with low toxicity are gaining prominence as drug/nutraceutical delivery vehicles. Hence, in this work, lotus pollen-based exine nanocapsules (lSEC) have been prepared and nanocapsules were incorporated with anthocyanin isolated from red cabbage (lSEC@a). An anthocyanin is also a pH indicator; anthocyanin was chosen to understand biopolymer sensitivity to gastric pH and application of anthocyanin as a nutraceutical. The prepared lSEC and lSEC@a have been thoroughly characterized through DLS, FTIR, UV–Vis spectroscopy to understand the changes corresponding to entrapment of nutraceuticals. The structure of the loaded capsules was visualized through HRSEM. The stability of the structure was monitored in gastric acid and confirmed, leading to the nanocapsule being categorized as a promising oral drug delivery vehicle. The prolonged acidolysis in this study to prepare capsules of sporopollenin could have led to the conversion of the microcapsules into nanocapsules, an aspect that has been confirmed through observation of size reduction employing dynamic light scattering technique.