Abstract

SAPONIN AS ABSORPTION ENHANCER

Ashwini Kumar*, Mayank Bansal, Ashutosh Kumar Singh, Aashutosh Prasad

Abstract

One of the important aim for the pharmaceutical industry is to optimize bioavailability of orally administered drug. Drug transport across mucosal membrane is a fundamental step for oral absorption. Class III and IV drugs of biopharmaceutical classification system, show low membrane permeability. Strategies such as, structural modification of the drug molecule to increase lipophilicity, prodrug method, formulating with permeation enhancer, ion pairing and complexation have been reported to enhance membrane permeation. In this article, we have reviewed the use of saponin as absorption/permeation enhancer. Saponin contains a steroidal or triterpenoid aglycon attached to one or more sugar chains. They exhibit membrane permeabilizing property. Saponin acts mainly by solubilising cholesterol and leaves much of membrane structure intact. Saponin can affect the integrity of biological membrane. By many examples of saponin viz. Gypsophylla saponin, saponin from Aralia elata, saponin from Phytolacca americana, saponin from Tribulus terrestris it may described.

Keywords: absorption, drug permeability, absorption enhancer, saponin.