Skin penetration of topical epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) as an alternative agent for photoaging prevention

Photoaging is skin aging, that especially caused by chronic exposure of ultraviolet radiation. Photoaging impacts to patients’ quality of life. Many substances, such as green tea, had been tried to be alternative agents for photoaging prevention. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is the most abundant component in green tea. The requirement of topical substance to be able to work and give benefit to the skin is the skin penetration. The aim of this study was to evaluate the skin penetration of EGCG. The back part of the male Wistar mouse was shaved carefully, then topical EGCG cream 5% and 10% were administered to mouse skin. After 1 week administration, the animal was terminated and the skin biopsy was done. The mouse skin was extracted and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) examination was performed to evaluate the skin penetration of topical EGCG. The result of HPLC examination of 2 ppm, 4 ppm, 6 ppm, and 8 ppm EGCG level, showed the curve peak at 3.295, 3.296, 3.295 and 3.293 second. The basic curve showed R² of pure EGCG powder used in this study was 0,9999. The result of HPLC examination in this study showed, the curve peak of extracted mouse skin after EGCG cream 5% and 10% administration were between 3.2-3.7 second. The result of HPLC examination in this study showed that EGCG cream could penetrate into Wistar mouse skin after EGCG cream application for 1 week.