Screening of polysaccharides from fruit pulp of Ziziphus mauritiana L. and Artocarpus heterophyllus L. as natural mucoadhesives

Abstract

BackgroundMucoadhesive polymers are applicable for improving the delivery of drug by prolonging the residence time and time of contact of the dosage form with the mucous membrane. Mucoadhesion may be defined as a process where the polymer substance gets adhered either to the biological substrate or synthetic or to a natural macromolecule, or to the mucus membrane. The natural polymers can be studied to determine whether they possess some mucoadhesive properties as several excipients derived from plants have proved their potential in the field of conventional or novel dosage form. The present work aims at determination of physical properties of polysaccharides from fruit pulp of Ziziphus mauritiana L. (ZM gum) and Artocarpus heterophyllus L. (AH gum), such as mucoadhesive strength (shear stress determination), swelling index, pH, viscosity, angle of repose, Carr’s index, density, and its comparative study with synthetic polymers Carbopol 934 and HPMC and also to study its FTIR and 1H-NMR spectra analysis.ResultThe most important properties such as mucoadhesive strength of ZM gum (3% w/v) and AH gum (3%) was found to be comparable with HPMC (3% w/v) and Carbopol 934 (3% w/v); also, the swelling index of the isolated gums were also found comparable with both HPMC and Carbopol 934. Falling sphere method is conducted in which the time taken by the sphere to move 50 divisions to the bottom for 3% w/v ZM gum solution was 10.14 s and for AH gum was 10.13 s which is comparable to HPMC and Carbopol 934. The FTIR & 1H NMR spectra showed typical characteristic signals of polysaccharides and presence of typical sugar residues.ConclusionFrom the study, it can be concluded that ZM and AH gum has potential to be better than Carbopol 934 and HPMC in respect of mucoadhesive strength and also it has the potential to replace some synthetic mucoadhesive polymers and polysaccharides.