Abstract
Despite the enormous potential of nanomedicine, the search for materials from renewable resources that balance bio-medical requirements and engineering aspects is still challenging. This study proposes an easy method to make nanoparticles composed of oxidized starch and chitosan, both isolated from natural biopolymers. The careful adjustment of C/N ratio, polymer concentration and molecular weight allowed for tuning of particle characteristics. The system’s carrier capability was assessed both for anti-infectives and for nucleic acid. Higher starch content polyplexes were found to be suitable for high encapsulation efficiency of cationic anti-infectives and preserving their bactericidal function. A cationic carrier was obtained by coating the anionic polyplex with chitosan. Coating allowed for a minimal amount of cationic polymer to be employed and facilitated plasmid DNA loading both within the particle core and on the surface. Transfection studies showed encouraging result, approximately 5% of A549 cells with reporter gene expression. In summary, starch-chitosan complexes are suitable carriers with promising perspectives for pharmaceutical use.
Highlights
Nanoparticulate carrier systems represent a well established platform for vaccination and treatment of severe diseases, such as infection and cancer, by protecting active agents, preventing burst release kinetics, providing the potential to enhance crossing of biological barriers and improving local drug delivery [1,2,3,4]
This study represents an extension in comparison to the particle preparation approach of in in which the the largelarge polypoly dispersity index index modified starch was employed for colloidal
The results clearly demonstrate the capacity of the anionic core polyplexes (anCP) carrier system to be loaded with either type of low-molecular weight (Mw) anti-infectives
Summary
Nanoparticulate carrier systems represent a well established platform for vaccination and treatment of severe diseases, such as infection and cancer, by protecting active agents, preventing burst release kinetics, providing the potential to enhance crossing of biological barriers and improving local drug delivery [1,2,3,4]. The selection of materials or excipients for nanomedical applications remains challenging due to strict requirements of the field. Such materials should be biocompatible and biodegradable, safe and at the same time provide good drug loading capacity as well as a potential to carry diverse bioactive agents [3]. A variety of polymeric materials derived from natural biopolymers have been synthesized and investigated to formulate vehicles to deliver bioactive molecules. These molecules have been embedded inside the polymeric matrix or adsorbed onto the colloidal surface [5] by either physical interaction (e.g., electrostatic complexation) or chemical modification. The number of biodegradable and biocompatible polymers which are further compatible with water (as a solvent suitable for pharmaceutical use) and can form nanoparticles with a high and versatile active agent
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