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Water diffusivity in human nail plate.

Hemali B Gunt1, Matthew A Miller, Gerald B Kasting

  • 1The University of Cincinnati Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH 45267-0004, USA.

Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
|September 6, 2007
PubMed
Summary
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Water diffusion in human nails significantly increases with humidity, rising over 400-fold from dry to fully hydrated states. This impacts how substances, like drugs, move through nails.

Area of Science:

  • Materials Science
  • Biophysics
  • Pharmacokinetics

Background:

  • Human nail is a complex keratinized tissue with variable water content.
  • Understanding water diffusion is crucial for nail properties and transungual drug delivery.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To quantify the diffusivity of water in human nail across a range of water contents.
  • To investigate the relationship between relative humidity and water diffusivity in nails.
  • To explore the implications for ungual drug delivery.

Main Methods:

  • Measured tritiated water desorption from cadaveric human nails.
  • Used controlled environments: liquid phase (100% RH) and vapor phase (15-85% RH).
  • Analyzed data considering equilibrium water content and free volume theory.

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Main Results:

  • Water diffusivity increased over 400-fold with increasing relative humidity (RH).
  • Diffusivity ranged from 7.7 x 10(-10) cm(2)/s at 15% RH to 3.2 x 10(-7) cm(2)/s at 100% RH.
  • Observed tritium exchange kinetics between water and nail keratin.

Conclusions:

  • Water diffusivity in human nail is highly dependent on water content and RH.
  • Findings align with diffusion models for hydrophilic polymers and other keratinized tissues.
  • Predicted nonlinear water concentration profiles in vivo have significant implications for ungual drug delivery.