Synthesis and characterization of vancomycin-loaded chitosan nanoparticles for drug delivery

Abstract

Chitosan is a linear polysaccharide with prominent physicochemical and biological properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, nonimmunogenicity, bioadhesion, and antibacterial, antifungal, and hemostatic activity. Due to these properties, it has found many applications in cosmetic, textile, and food industries; agriculture; biotechnology; and pharmaceutical industry and medicine, especially in biomedical applications. The special chemical structure of chitosan allows some specific modifications, and by reducing the size of chitosan particles to nano-size, it becomes an excellent drug nanocarrier. Vancomycin is a typical antibiotic used for bacterial infections caused by gram-positive bacteria. In this work, chitosan nanoparticles (CSNPs) were prepared via ionotropic gelation using tripolyphosphate (TPP) as a cross-linker. The effect of chitosan and TPP concentration on the size of chitosan nanoparticles was studied, and CS/TPP ratio of 1:1 with an average size of nanoparticle about 100 nm was selected. The prepared samples were characterized using DLS, FTIR, TGA, DSC, and SEM techniques. The results confirmed that vancomycin has been loaded successfully on chitosan nanoparticles. Also, it is observed that 40% of vancomycin is released burstly in the first 9 h and after that the drug release is continued gradually to receive 90% at 100 h.