Open Access Conference Proceedings

Extracts from naturally occurred sources, such as plants or microorganisms, have been recently tested for their interesting properties that can be used in food or cosmetic industry.The aim of this work is to encapsulate microbial compounds, some plant extracts and also model hydrophilic and hydrophobic substances. Chosen components were encapsulated into liposomes.Particle size and distributions of liposomes were analyzed by dynamic light scattering and their stability by using zeta potential. Spectrophotometric methods were used to measure encapsulation efficiency and to characterize the chosen plant extracts by its amount of total polyphenols, flavonoids and antioxidant activity.Chosen samples were analyzed for their antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity. Serratia marcescens, Escherichia coli as gram-negative bacterias, Micrococcus luteus as gram-positive bacteria and fungal strain (Candida glabrata) were used to test antimicrobial activity. Human keratinocytes and mouse melanoma cells were used to cytotoxicity determination.It has been proved that encapsulation techniques help slowly release the active compounds from plant extracts and transport them to targeted location. Antimicrobial effect was also seen before and after encapsulation into liposomes. Moreover, none of the extracts showed evidence of cytotoxicity.

Keywords: Encapsulation, liposomes, polyphenols, antioxidant activity, antimicrobial activity, cytotoxicity

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