Ashland Announces an Initiative for Probiotic Effects

Ashland Care Specialties, a business unit of Ashland Specialty Ingredients, recently announced Skin’s Ecology, an initiative in support of new products that help normalize microflora on the surface of skin. The skin’s natural probiotic defenses are supported by antimicrobial peptides and are essential in the skin’s ongoing fight against undesirable microorganisms. Ashland will show how a biofunctional ingredient based on flax seed may be used to support cathelicidin and β-defensin antimicrobial peptides, an important class of biological peptides necessary to maintain a proper ecosystem balance on skin.

“Probiotics are consumed by millions of people every day to help balance the body’s inner microflora.  Likewise, it may be possible to enhance the natural microbiome and biochemical shield on the surface of skin with a topical cream containing Lipigenine? biofunctional,” said Justine Cotton, marketing manager, skin care biofunctionals, Ashland Care Specialties. “Inspiration for our biofunctional derived from flax seed comes from the process pertaining to skin’s own lipid production in the stratum corneum, which goes beyond a physical barrier function to include a biochemical shield against the proliferation of undesirable microorganisms.”  

The skin’s natural defense strategy is to synthesize natural antimicrobial peptides, produced by keratinocytes at the same intracellular level as the lipids of the stratum corneum. Antimicrobial peptides synthesize in the endoplasmic reticulum/Golgi apparatus complex and then transport in lamellar bodies to the skin surface. Enhancing cathelicidin LL-37 and β-defensin antimicrobial peptides may support ecosystem balance on the skin surface and may enhance the appearance of skin.

Microbial garden
The skin is an ecosystem, harboring microbial communities living in a range of physiologically and topographically distinct niches. Approximately 1 billion bacteria per square centimenter of skin live in cooperation with the host. Under normal conditions, resident and transient microbes remain harmless. However, disruptions to the skin barrier – physical and biochemical – may cause the appearance of skin dryness.

The body has hundreds of natural antimicrobial peptides with an ability to inhibit the growth of harmful microbes. Ashland’s laboratory work in vitro and ex vivo has demonstrated that it is possible to enhance the expression of beneficial cathelicidin LL-37 and β-defensin antimicrobial peptides in keratinocytes 24 hours after topical application of 1 percent (active) Lipigenine biofunctional.

“The results surpassed our own expectations,” said Cotton. “In vitro and ex vivo test results suggest an improvement in the expression of antimicrobial peptides that ranged from approximately 50 percent to nearly 150 percent. Follow-up efficacy testing showed significant growth inhibition of an undesirable microbe after contact with cultured medium from keratinocytes. Based on these results, we envision a new category of skin care products that may assist the skin in its natural efforts to normalize microflora on the surface of skin and balance its ecosytem to help protect against external stresses.”

Probiotic skin care
Managing the microflora on skin by eliciting beneficial probiotic effects is one of the most promising areas of skin care research. The Skin’s Ecology initiative brings together biologists from Ashland’s skin research together with formulation and consumer science professionals to help skin care product makers commercialize new innovations that address the microflora ecology on the skin surface.

Ashland can support day or night formulations, formulations to address sensitive skin, formulations to sooth skin and formulations based on probiotic effects, among other concepts. For more information about the Skin’s Ecology initiative, contact Justine Cotton (jcotton@ashland.com).Nike Air Max