New paper on liposome tribology published in Biotribology

Dry mouth is a troublesome condition linked to lubrication failure and leads to other diseases such as fungal infections and wounds in the oral cavity. There are many commercial salivary substitutes in the market, but none with a long-lasting lubrication effect. Prof. Hiorth from University of Oslo, Norway and team have fabricated polymer-coated liposomes as a formulation strategy for retrieving the symptoms of dry mouth by mimicking the micelles of saliva. In this paper titled "Lubricating Performance of Polymer-Coated Liposomes" published in Biotribology, Volume 35-36, Article No. 100239 by Prof. Hiorth in collaboration with Prof. Sarkar, carried out at Sarkar Lab with ball-on-disc tribometer with steel-steel contacts, it is demonstrated that positively-charged formulations (chitosan, positive liposomes and chitosan-coated liposomes) had superior lubricating properties with friction coefficients (μ < 0.1) at orally relevant speeds (50 mm/s) as compared to the neutral or negatively-charged systems. Particularly, at boundary lubrication conditions , the chitosan-coated liposomes obtained an even lower friction force than the individual components, thus indicating a synergistic effect between the polymer and the liposome. These formulations thus could have promising properties in a dry mouth reliving formulation intended to protect the teeth from erosion, attrition and abrasion and should be studied further with this in mind. Full paper can be assessed here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biotri.2023.100239