POLYPHENOLS CONJUGATED TO SE-SUGARS SUPPORTED ON IRON OXIDE NANOPARTICLES AS POTENTIALS ANTIOXIDANT AGENTS

Agri‐food byproducts rich in polyphenolic compounds are endowed with beneficial properties to human health, that may be largely ascribed to their potent antioxidant and scavenging activity against Reactive Oxygen Species generated in settings of oxidative stress and responsible for the onset of neurological diseases (ND). On the other hand, organoselenium compounds present important biological properties, however, their actual clinical exploitability could be hampered by the low aqueous solubility which precludes them from reaching therapeutically relevant doses in blood. A possible strategy to overcome this barrier is to combine the pharmacological properties of Se with the physicochemical properties of sugars, leading to the class of selenosugars and their derivatives. However, the use of Se-sugars and polyphenols, in the prevention of ND, is limited by the difficulty of crossing the Blood Brain Barrier. A feasible solution is the use of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (IONPs) as support and transporter of these bioactive compounds. On this basis, this work involved a new approach to the preparation of nanostructured materials, consisting of IONPs coated with polyphenols and Se-sugars.