Natural Matrine-Integrated Pollen Delivery Systems for Allergic Contact Dermatitis Treatment

Allergic contact dermatitis (ACD) is an inflammatory dermatitis with a high morbidity and recurrence rate. Scientific attention is focused on the development of safe and comfortable therapeutics of ACD. Herein, we propose a natural matrine-integrated pollen delivery system for the ACD treatment. Sunflower pollens were collected and defatted to serve as adhesive drug carriers for matrine. Specifically, the exquisite porous and hollow structures of the pollen shells can absorb matrine and realize the sustained drug release. Besides, the prickly surface morphology can strongly adhere to the inflamed skin sites, which can prolong the duration of the drug. By utilizing them in an ACD model and an acute pruritus model of mice, we have demonstrated that these matrine-integrated pollen shells can decrease the swelling degree of mice ears and weight loss, down-regulate inflammatory response, and improve the scratching times. These results indicate that our matrine-integrated pollen delivery systems have great potential to serve as natural topical preparations for skin disease therapy.