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Psoriasis is a recurrent, life-threatening anti-inflammatory condition that affects nearly 1-3% of the global population. It is an autoimmune illness distinguished by hyperplasia of skin cells or fast skin cell development, resulting in abnormally irritating scales and skin patches. Curcumin, as a selective phosphorylase kinase inhibitor, actively suppresses inflammation and keratinocyte proliferation in psoriasis. However, limited solubility in water and poor skin permeability poses a significant hurdle in curcumin's topical effectiveness in psoriasis. The present study focuses on enhancing the solubility and skin permeability of curcumin for better transdermal application. Curcumin-loaded invasomes were formulated, and a factorial design was applied to study the effect of the type of terpenes and their concentrations on the properties of prepared invasomes. A topical gel was formulated using the optimised invasomal formulation which was further evaluated for anti-psoriatic potential in BALB/c mice. The optimised formulation showed 85.84 ± 0.56% entrapment efficiency and a vesicle size of 302.33 ± 1.53 nm. The invasomal gel of the optimised formulation showed a permeation flux of 3 times greater than the plain gel. In vivo studies demonstrated that the invasomal gel of curcumin promoted faster and earlier recovery in psoriatic mice than conventional curcumin gel., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.)

Objective(s): Invasomes are nano-sized vesicular systems made of ethanol, soybean phosphatidylcholine and terpenes that promote skin penetration by disrupting the lipoidal structure of stratum corneum, interacting with the matrix proteins and augmenting the partitioning of the drug moiety in the skin layer. Curcumin is a well-known bright yellow coloured polyphenol which is produced by the plants of curcuma long class belonging to family Zingiberaceae. It is being used in the therapeutic field since ancient times for the treatment of several diseases. It is a complex molecule with substantial activity against a number of ailments. Despite having a number of health benefits, curcumin's limited water solubility and poor skin penetration are the major barriers in its transdermal application. Materials and Methods: In present research work, terpenoid invasomal nano vesicles of curcumin were prepared using mechanical dispersion process with eucalyptol as the permeation enhancer. The prepared invasomal formulations were characterised and optimised in terms of entrapment efficiency, vesicle size, in vitro drug release, ex vivo permeation and skin retention analysis. Results: The transmission electron microscope confirmed the presence of spherical-shaped vesicles with a vesicle size of 461.57± 1.38 nm and 80.54 ± 0.38 % entrapment efficiency. In vitro release kinetics conformed well with Higuchi kinetic model for release. Ex vivo study confirmed that the curcumin permeation across the pig ear skin from the optimised formulation was 2.5 times higher than curcumin solution and had a flux of 179.44±0.26 µg/cm2/h. Conclusion: The study suggests that invasomes have a high potential for transdermal administration of curcumin which can increase the topical utility of curcumin in several skin diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]