ABSTRACT:
In the present work, in view of the medicinal properties of vetiver oil (extracted from the roots of Vetiveria zizanioides L.), we made an attempt to predict the possible activity of khusinol, khusimol, germacrene D, junipene, ?-muurolene, biclovetivenol, viridiflorene, ß-vetispirene, ß-vetivenene, and ß-caryophyllene with two cannabinoid receptors, CB1 and CB2 (responsible for antidepressant action) via the in silico molecular docking in a way to encapsulate vetiver oil in different gellan gum-based microcapsules for antidepressant activity. The results of the docking analyses demonstrated that khusinol, germacrene D, and ?-muurolene were docked in the CB1 and CB2 receptors, indicating that the vetiver oil-encapsulated formulation could be effective for antidepressant action. Vetiver oil-encapsulated gellan gum-based microcapsules were prepared using gellan gum only, gellan gum-sodium alginate blends and gellan gum-karaya gum blends via the o/w emulsification-ionotropic crosslinking gelation methodology using aqueous solutions of calcium chloride (4 %). The vetiver oil encapsulation within these microcapsules was calculated and found to be ranged in-between 29.61 ± 3.18 % and 52.69 ± 3.31 %. The in vitro releases of encapsulated vetiver oil gellan gum-based microcapsules were found to be sustained over 8 h. Vetiver oil-encapsulated gellan gum-alginate microcapsules (F5) was selected as best formulation, which exhibited highest oil encapsulation (52.69 ± 3.31 %) and more sustained in vitro releasing of vetiver oil (72.15 ± 3.27 %) than other vetiver oil-encapsulated microcapsules formulations. The mean diameter of the F5 microcapsules was measured 650 µm. The in vivo antidepressant activity of F5 microcapsules was evaluated by forced swimming test and tail suspension test in the Swiss albino mice. The results have shown significant antidepressant activity of vetiver oil-encapsulated gellan gum-alginate microcapsules (F5).