Pluronic-SAILs (surface active ionic liquids) mixed micelles as efficient hydrophobic quercetin drug carriers

Abstract

The present manuscript reports a systematic investigation on the solubilization of hydrophobic drug Quercetin (QCT) in pluronic F108 and its mixed micelles with surface active ionic liquids (SAILs) having same alkyl chain length but different hydrophobic head groups viz. 1-dodecyl-3-methylimidazolium bromide [Mim]; N-dodecyl-Nmethylpiperidinium bromide, [Pip]; N-dodecyl-Nmethylpyrrolidinium bromide, [Pyr]. Employing UV–visible spectroscopy, we have determined the solubility, loading efficiency and partition coefficient of QCT in the pluronic F108 and F108-SAILs mixed micelles. The F108-SAIL mixed micellar system possessed higher solubilization capacity for QCT. Further, the effect of varying composition of mixed micelles on the solubilization of QCT has also been evaluated and discussed in detail. A significant difference between the hydrodynamic diameter (Dh) of loaded and unloaded F108 as well as F108-SAILs mixed micelles confirmed that QCT has been solubilized in these micelles. Differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) measurements have been successfully employed to determine the possible location of the QCT in the both pluronic F108 and pluronic F108-SAILs mixed micelles. These measurements indicated that most of QCT is solubilized in the core of the F108 and F108-SAILs mixed micelles. In vitro drug release study of three different F108-SAILs mixed micellar formulations show sustained release behavior according to their interaction with the QCT. Higher anticancer effects were observed in the case of micellar QCT than the free QCT confirm the efficiency of the prepared formulations. The results demonstrated that the composition of mixed micelles had a profound effect on solubilization capacity and the drug release behavior from the F108-SAILs mixed micelles can be easily tuned by changing the head group of SAILs.