Fabrication of acacia gum grafted copolymeric network hydrogel for biomedical applications

Abstract

Keeping in view therapeutic role of gum polysaccharides and to explore advancements in research expectancy in area of gum for future research for development of new materials for biomedical applications, in present research, acacia gum was grafted with poly(acrylamide) [poly(AAm)] and poly(2-arylamido-2-methylpropanesulfonic acid) poly(AMPSA) to design hydrogels by copolymerization for use in drug delivery of levofloxacin antibiotic drug. These co-polymers were characterized by SEMs, AFM, FTIR, 13C NMR, XRD and TGA. The SEM indicated uneven surface due to grafting and AFM confirmed the surface roughness for better mucoadhesion. The prominent peaks at 178.871 ppm and 52.180 ppm indicated the incorporation of the AAM and AMPSA due to CO and C–S into copolymer by grafting reaction. XRD indicated the amorphous region and TGA reflected three stages thermal decomposition. The results reflected slow release of drug due to supra-molecular interactions between drug and copolymers and diffusion of drug occurred with non-Fickian mechanism from network hydrogels with first order kinetic release model. The copolymeric material showed radical scavenging activity was 26.12 ± 2.23% in DPPH assay and 3.42 ± 0.396% hemolytic index values. The network copolymers also showed 0.281 ± 0.093 N peak detachment force from mucoadhesive test. The results of biomedical assay inference the non-hemolytic behavior with antioxidant and mucoadhesive nature of the network copolymers. These results signified the suitability of the polymeric materials for colon specific drug delivery.