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Novel hydrophilic chitosan‐polyethylene oxide nanoparticles as protein carriers
Author(s) -
Calvo P.,
RemuñánLópez C.,
VilaJato J. L.,
Alonso M. J.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-4628(19970103)63:1<125::aid-app13>3.0.co;2-4
Subject(s) - ethylene oxide , chitosan , bovine serum albumin , nanoparticle , zeta potential , polymer , chemical engineering , copolymer , aqueous solution , materials science , ionic strength , polyethylene , propylene oxide , chemistry , polymer chemistry , organic chemistry , chromatography , nanotechnology , engineering
Hydrophilic nanoparticulate carriers have important potential applications for the administration of therapeutic molecules. The recently developed hydrophobic‐hydrophilic carriers require the use of organic solvents for their preparation and have a limited protein‐loading capacity. To address these limitations a new approach for the preparation of nanoparticles made solely of hydrophilic polymers is presented. The preparation technique, based on an ionic gelation process, is extremely mild and involves the mixture of two aqueous phases at room temperature. One phase contains the polysaccharide chitosan (CS) and a diblock copolymer of ethylene oxide and propylene oxide (PEO‐PPO) and, the other, contains the polyanion sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP). Size (200–1000 nm) and zeta potential (between +20 mV and +60 mV) of nanoparticles can be conveniently modulated by varying the ratio CS/PEO‐PPO. Furthermore, using bovine serum albumin (BSA) as a model protein it was shown that these new nanoparticles have a great protein loading capacity (entrapment efficiency up to 80% of the protein) and provide a continuous release of the entrapped protein for up to 1 week. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.