The development of effective forms to incorporate poorly soluble drugs into delivery\nsystems remains a problem. Thus, it is important to find alternatives such as finding excipients\nthat increase drug solubility. Ionic liquids (ILs), particularly choline-based ILs, have been studied\nas solubility enhancers in drug delivery systems. Nonetheless, to acknowledge this property as a\nfunctionality, it needs to be proven at non-toxic concentrations. Hence, herein two choline-amino\nacid ILs were studied as functional excipients by evaluating their influence on the solubility of the\npoorly water-soluble ferulic acid and rutin, while considering their safety. The solubility of the drugs\nwas always higher in the presence of the ILs than in water. Ionic liquids did not affect the radical\nscavenging activity of the drugs or the cell viability. Moreover, stable oil-in-water (O/W) emulsions\nwere prepared containing each drug and the ILs, allowing a significantly higher drug loading.\nGlobally, our results suggest that choline-based ILs may act as green functional excipients, since at\nnon-toxic concentrations they considerably improve drug solubility/loading, without influencing the\nantioxidant activity of the drugs, the cell viability, or the stability of the formulations.
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