Innovation of testosome as a green formulation for the transdermal delivery of testosterone enanthate

Biocompatible and biodegradable non-ionic surfactant-based vesicles, known as niosomes, and their potential applications in the topical drug delivery systems have attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. In the present study, the ultrasonication technique was employed to encapsulate testosterone enanthate (TE) as a lipophilic drug in the niosome (testosome). The objective of this research was to acquire the optimum ratio of cholesterol: surfactants as a drug delivery nanocarrier with high skin permeation and encapsulation efficiency. The optimum fabricated formulation was examined by different characterization techniques such as Attenuated Total Reflectance Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Powder X-ray Diffraction Analysis (PXRD). The skin permeation study for the penetrated TE into and through the rat skin indicated that the testosome gel can present a considerable enhancement compared to the TE gel. Moreover, to evaluate the applicability of the presented model, the in-vitro cytotoxicity test was performed using Hu02 normal fibroblast cell line. Significant cellular cytotoxicity was observed for TE compared to niosomal formulations. The results of this research revealed that the prepared testosomes could be used as potential nanocarriers for the transdermal delivery of TE.