Exploiting the potential of dehydroabietic acid formulations to tackle skin ageing

PI Sérgio Fallone de Andrade

CBIOS Team Members

• Sérgio Fallone de Andrade
• Catarina Pereira Leite
• Luis Antonio Monteiro Rodrigues
• Catarina Fialho Rosado
• Patrícia Dias de Mendonça Rijo

From 2021 to 2023

Description

Skin is the largest organ of the body, covering an area of 1.5–2 m² and is affected by several external environmental factors such as ultraviolet radiation, air pollution, smoking. Its main functions are temperature regulation, immunity from microorganisms, maintaining electrolyte balance, and protection from physical injuries, chemical agents and ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Skin ageing is one of the most important phenotypes of ageing and occurs in every layer of the skin, primarily due to the degradation of its components. In the last decades, people pay more and more attention to appearance, and skincare and anti-ageing have become one of the hot spots of world concern. Thus, the skin care market based on natural products continues to see strong growth. In this context, the research of naturally occurring anti-ageing agents is greatly expanding and in recent years numerous plant-derived products have been investigated.

In addition, there is in nowadays efforts in search of value aggregation to sub products of the industrial processes. Dehydroabietic acid (DAA) is a natural diterpene and major component of the rosin fraction of oleoresin produced by conifer species, such as grand fir (Abies grandis) and lodgepo le pine (Pinus contorta). It is a substance present in significant quantities in the paper mill effluents. However, previous studies have demonstrated that DAA has antiaging effects in human dermal fibroblasts.

Skin ageing is closely related with Ultraviolet exposure and as well as skin microcirculation alterations vascular ageing-related. However, there is no investigation about the potential benefits of formulations containing DAA in human skin. Thus, the purpose of this work is to develop nanotechnology-based formulations containing DAA, as well as to evaluate the effects of them on human skin considering biomechanical, hydration, microcirculation aspects, and irritative potential. It is expected that this work will be the first step to allow the use of this substance in the cosmetic formulations, as well as to value DAA which in current is a subproduct in the cellulose industry.

Funding entity

COFAC / Seed Funding