Strat-M artificial skin membrane

Strat-M artificial skin membraneIt is an artificial membrane with separation function developed by Millipore company. It is a multi-layer polyether sulfone membrane without animal components, coated with skin lipids (such as ceramide free fatty acids), and can be used as a transdermal diffusion model for various drugs.

The Strat-M artificial skin membrane consists of two layers of polyester sulfone porous membrane containing synthetic lipids and one layer of polyolefin support layer, where layer I and layer II contain lipids, and layer III does not contain lipids.. Strat-M ™ The membrane thickness is about 300 μ m, and the density gradually decreases from the upper layer to the lower layer. The top two layers are porous polyether sulfone, and the bottom layer is a polyolefin fabric carrier. Through BET characterization, its gas impermeability is similar to that of human skin. The permeability coefficients of saturated solutions of 13 compounds in different media were tested using the Franz diffusion cell method, and it was found that the compounds were highly correlated with the permeability coefficient of human skin after passing through the Strat-M membrane.

Transepidermal penetration is the main pathway for drug transdermal absorption. The drug penetrates through the stratum corneum (the main barrier), epidermis, and dermis layer through passive diffusion, and finally enters the capillaries. Due to the thickness of the stratum corneum being only 10-20 μ m and containing 15-25 layers of lipid bilayers, it exhibits high density and hydrophobicity (permeability of water-soluble substances<10 ⁻⁶ cm/s), making it the main limiting step for transdermal drug absorption. Therefore, the study of stratum corneum penetration behavior is of crucial importance for the development of transdermal drug delivery formulations. Meanwhile, the transdermal permeability characteristics are closely related to bioavailability, and research on them can assist in predicting and evaluating the in vivo permeability characteristics of drugs, helping to establish a more scientific quality evaluation system for transdermal drug delivery products.

At present, researchers have developed various in vivo and in vitro skin permeability evaluation methods for skin drug delivery formulations, which have been successfully applied to the study of drug transdermal delivery systems, including in vitro transdermal testing, mathematical model permeability prediction, animal experimental research, and other methods.

In summary, Strat-M artificial skin membrane has become a good substitute for skin models due to its advantages of being cheap, easy to obtain, structurally stable, and quickly obtaining results, as well as supporting the evaluation of permeation flux from limited dose to infinite dose.