Solcumin™: a functional hybrid particle with potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activities and enhanced storage...

Separation and encapsulation provide a practical and effective strategy for the targeted delivery of bioactive components in formulation technologies. This study aimed to develop an inorganic Pickering-mediated formulation, Solcumin™, for food-derived tetrahydrocurcumin (THC), and to evaluate its long-term storage stability and in vitro bioactivity.

In this study, we investigated the application of inorganic Pickering-mediated techniques to encapsulate food-derived bioactive compounds. Solcumin™ was industrially produced and subjected to physicochemical analysis, stability testing in distilled water over 8 weeks at 25 °C, and in vitro bioactivity assessment, including antioxidant (DPPH, ABTS), cytotoxicity (HDFn cells), and anti-inflammatory (NO, IL-6) assays.

Solcumin™ contained 11.5% tetrahydrocurcumin (THC) and exhibited excellent stability in distilled water, retaining 85% of its initial THC content after 8 weeks of storage at 25°C, while effectively preventing leaching and oxidation. Furthermore, Solcumin™ demonstrated notable anti-inflammatory activity, inhibiting nitric oxide (NO) production by approximately 89.11% and reducing interleukin-6 (IL-6) expression in a dose-dependent manner. It also exhibited antioxidant activity, as indicated by radical scavenging activity in both 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and 2,2'-azinobis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS) assays at a concentration of 100 µg/mL.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report the development of biomineralization-based Solcumin™ and evaluate its in vitro bioactivity.