• anti-inflammatory effect
• polymer
• quercetin

Microglial cells are the main cell type able to regulate and influence development, homeostasis, central nervous system immunity. Flavonoids are molecules with remarkable anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, an example is quercetin. Over the last few years, a number of innovative systems have been designed and approved for their biocompatibility and biodegradability to ensure controlled and prolonged release of flavonoids. In this thesis work, the capacity of the flavonoid quercetin loaded on a polymeric system to reduce pro-inflammatory activation of microglial cells (BV2) was evaluated in vitro. This was studied by analyzing the expression of typical inflammation markers using Real Time qPCR. The polymeric system used was a microporous PLGA (poly lactic-co-glycolic acid) membrane. By analyzing different time points of quercetin release from the polymeric system, we could conclude that quercetin released from the membrane maintains its anti-inflammatory activity. However, long release timing is noxious to the cells probably because of the auto-oxidation of the flavonoid.