Lipid nanocapsules as a new delivery system in copepods: Toxicity studies and optical imaging

In this paper, we investigated the potential of lipid nanocapsules (LNCs) as a delivery system of small hydrophobic molecules, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) - pyrene, fluoranthene, phenanthrene, in the copepod Acartia tonsa. The LNCs were produced by a phase inversion process with a nominal size of 50 nm. These nanocapsules were obtained without organic solvent and with pharmaceutically acceptable excipients. The PAHs-LNCs displayed a stable monodisperse size distribution and a good stability in sea water for 7 days. By using fluorescent LNCs, it was possible to evidence LNCs ingestion by the copepods using confocal laser scanning microscopy. While blank LNCs are not toxic to copepods at tested concentrations, PAH-loaded LNCs were found to be very toxic on A. tonsa with a high mortality rate reaching 95% after 72 h exposure to 200 nM pyrene-loaded LNCs. On the other hand, when acetone is used to dissolve an equivalent concentration of PAHs in sea water, the copepod mortality is 10 times lower than using LNCs as nano-delivery system. This confirms the efficiency of using LNCs to deliver molecules directly in the gut or copepod carapace. The small size and non toxicity of these delivery nano-systems make them suitable for drug delivery to copepods.