Evaluation of mucoadhesive property of gum ghatti

Abstract

Gum ghatti is a high molecular weight anionic polysaccharide used in food and pharmaceutically applied as binder, thickener, emulsifier and sustained release matrix as promising polysaccharide which has not been explored as mucoadhesive polymer. The present study was carried out to evaluate gum ghatti as mucoadhesive polymer by preparing buccal disc using metronidazole as model drug. The effect of varying concentration of gum ghatti and compression pressure on ex vivo bioadhesion time and in vitro release was studied using 2-factor 3-level central composite experimental design. Metronidazole loaded gum ghatti buccal discs were evaluated by weight uniformity, thickness, friability and content uniformity. Ex vivo bioadhesion time of buccal disc was measured as time taken by buccal disc to detach from chicken buccal pouch. In vitro release behavior was studied by adhering disc to the bottom of vessel using USP type II (TDT-08L Electrolab, Mumbai, India) dissolution release apparatus. The release data was fitted into various kinetic models. The prepared buccal discs were of uniform average weight, thickness, drug content and having friability less than 1 %. The results of optimization study revealed that increasing the proportion of gum ghatti results in increase in bioadhesion time and decrease the release rate while increasing compression pressure was found to increase the release rate. The present work concluded that gum ghatti is promising mucoadhesive polymer which can be used effectively.