Abstract
Information on the preparation and properties of starch/gelatin blend microparticles with and without crosslinking for drug delivery is presented. The blend microparticles were prepared by the water-in-oil emulsion solvent diffusion method. Glutaraldehyde and methylene blue were used as the crosslinker and the water-soluble drug model, respectively. The blend microparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The functional groups of the starch and gelatin blend matrices were determined from the FTIR spectra. Blend microparticles with a nearly spherical shape and internal porous structure were observed from SEM images. The average particle size of the gelatin microparticles depended on the crosslinker ratio but not on the starch/gelatin blend ratio. The in vitro drug release content significantly decreased as the crosslinker ratio increased and the starch blend ratio decreased. The results demonstrated that the starch/gelatin blend microparticles should be a useful controlled release delivery carrier for water-soluble drugs.
Highlights
The development of biocompatible polymeric microparticles for controlled release drug delivery applications has been a subject of great interest for the past few decades [1,2,3,4]
In this research, blending of starch and gelatin results in formation of nearly spherical microparticles which exhibit a promise to function as a carrier of water-soluble drug model, methylene blue
The drug-loaded microparticles prepared in this paper show sustained release of the drug model
Summary
The development of biocompatible polymeric microparticles for controlled release drug delivery applications has been a subject of great interest for the past few decades [1,2,3,4]. The water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion-coacervation method has been widely used to prepare gelatin microparticles [6,7,8]. The formation of crosslinked starch/gelatin blend microparticles as a drug delivery system has not yet been reported. Our previous work has shown that the W/O emulsion solvent diffusion method was a potential method for preparing hydrophilic polymeric microparticles such as chitosan [4], starch [4, 11], and silk fibroin [12, 13]. Starch/gelatin blend microparticles containing a water-soluble model drug were prepared by the water-inoil emulsion method. The influences of the glutaraldehydecrosslinking and starch/gelatin blend ratio on microparticle characteristics and drug release profile were determined
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