Small granules and plasma membrane thickening in human cervical squamous epithelium

Buccal bioadhesive drug delivery--a promising option for orally less efficient drugs

Rapid developments in the field of molecular biology and gene technology resulted in generation of many macromolecular drugs including peptides, proteins, polysaccharides and nucleic acids in great number possessing superior pharmacological efficacy with site specificity and devoid of untoward and toxic effects. However, the main impediment for the oral delivery of these drugs as potential therapeutic agents is their extensive presystemic metabolism, instability in acidic environment resulting into inadequate and erratic oral absorption. Parenteral route of administration is the only established route that overcomes all these drawbacks associated with these orally less/inefficient drugs. But, these formulations are costly, have least patient compliance, require repeated administration, in addition to the other hazardous effects associated with this route. Over the last few decades' pharmaceutical scientists throughout the world are trying to explore transdermal and transmucosal routes as an alternative to injections. Among the various transmucosal sites available, mucosa of the buccal cavity was found to be the most convenient and easily accessible site for the delivery of therapeutic agents for both local and systemic delivery as retentive dosage forms, because it has expanse of smooth muscle which is relatively immobile, abundant vascularization, rapid recovery time after exposure to stress and the near absence of langerhans cells. Direct access to the systemic circulation through the internal jugular vein bypasses drugs from the hepatic first pass metabolism leading to high bioavailability. Further, these dosage forms are self-administrable, cheap and have superior patient compliance. Developing a dosage form with the optimum pharmacokinetics is a promising area for continued research as it is enormously important and intellectually challenging. With the right dosage form design, local environment of the mucosa can be controlled and manipulated in order to optimize the rate of drug dissolution and permeation. A rational approach to dosage form design requires a complete understanding of the physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties of the drug and excipients. Advances in experimental and computational methodologies will be helpful in shortening the processing time from formulation design to clinical use. This paper aims to review the developments in the buccal adhesive drug delivery systems to provide basic principles to the young scientists, which will be useful to circumvent the difficulties associated with the formulation design.

The permeability of oral mucosa

In discussing permeability, we are describing one of the fundamental barrier functions of oral mucosa. Despite assumptions to the contrary, the oral mucosa is not a uniformly, highly permeable tissue like gut, but shows regional variation. The keratinized areas, such as gingiva and hard palate, are least permeable and nonkeratinized lining areas are most permeable. This variation appears to reflect differences in the types of lipid making up the intercellular permeability barrier in the superficial layers of the epithelium. Differences in permeability may be related to regional differences in the prevalence of certain mucosal diseases and can be utilized to advantage for local and systemic drug delivery.

Tannic acid binding of cell surfaces in normal, premalignant, and malignant squamous epithelium of the human uterine cervix

Alterations in tannic acid (TA) binding capacity of cell surface carbohydrates in normal, premalignant, and malignant squamous epithelium of the human uterine cervix have been studied using electron microscopic visualization in combination with microdensitometric evaluation. While in normal epithelium there is distinct binding in four to five cell layers of the deep intermediate zone, cells of carcinoma in situ and invasive cancer lesions lack TA binding. In moderate dysplasia an intermediate reacting pattern is found. Deep intermediate cells in areas bordering the carcinoma in situ lesions do not show any binding, although their ultrastructure cannot be distinguished from similar cells in normal tissue. The TA deposition within the deep intermediate zone is probably related to the presence here of glycoprotein-containing membrane-coating granules. The finding that TA binding discriminates between cells in normal squamous epithelium and morphologically normal cells in juxtaposition with lesional areas in premalignant and malignant epithelium opens the possibility for a more reliable cytologic diagnosis of cervical epithelial neoplasia.

Zinc iodide-osmium staining of membrane-coating granules in keratinized and non-keratinized mammalian oral epithelium

Specimens of keratinized and non-keratinized oral epithelium were examined in the electron microscope after being stained with zinc iodide-osmium. In both types of tissue, reaction was seen in unmyelinated nerves, in the specific granules of epithelial Langerhans cells and within lysosome-like organelles and small vesicles associated with Golgi systems. In keratinized epithelia, the reaction was also present in the membrane-coating granules and between the deepest cells of the keratinized layer. In contrast, the membrane-coating granules of non-keratinized epithelia lacked Zn iodide-osmium staining despite the presence of reaction in adjacent Golgi systems. It is suggested that Zn iodide-osmium stains glycolipid or glycoprotein material in the cell. This material is elaborated in the Golgi systems from which lysosomes and the membrane-coating granules of keratinized tissues are probably derived.