Doxycycline-encapsulated solid lipid nanoparticles for the enhanced antibacterial potential to treat the chronic brucellosis and preventing its relapse: in vivo study

BACKGROUND: Brucellosis is one of the most important infection of diseases. Due to its large period of treatment and survival ability of bacteria inside the macrophages, relapse of this disease is the main challenge, especially, after the treatment. OBJECTIVE: The current study was carried out to evaluate the antibacterial effect of solid lipid nanoparticles loaded with doxycycline on the Brucella melitensis in in vivo conditions. METHODS: The double emulsion synthesized doxycycline-encapsulated solid lipid nanoparticles (DOX-SLN) was characterized using DLS and FE-SEM. The efficacy of the DOX-SLN on the acute and chronic Wistar rat infected brucellosis was investigated. The pathological assessments were made on the spleen and liver in the treated rates. RESULTS: The in vivo experimental results demonstrated that the treated rats with DOX-SLN had significantly decreased the B. melitensis CFUs in their spleen and liver compared to that of the treated rates with free doxycycline and untreated ones. The pathologic results indicate that the improvement trend of spleen and liver tissues in rats treated by DOX-SLN was satisfactory. CONCLUSION: According to in vivo results, the DOX-SLN has better effects on the treatment of chronic brucellosis. Therefore, DOX-SLN is recommended to treat the brucellosis and avoid its relapse. [Image: see text]