Development of Hydrophilic Drug Encapsulation and Controlled Release Using a Modified Nanoprecipitation Method

• DOI: 10.3390/pr7060331
• Publication Date: 2019-06-03T06:08:40Z
• Authors: Jiang Xu; Yuyan Chen; Xizhi Jiang; Zhongzheng Gui; Lei Zhang
• Keywords: nanoprecipitation; drug delivery systems; nanoparticles; self-assembly; 02 engineering and technology; diblock copolymers; 0210 nano-technology

The improvement of the loading content of hydrophilic drugs by polymer nanoparticles (NPs) recently has received increased attention from the field of controlled release. We developed a novel, simply modified, drop-wise nanoprecipitation method which separated hydrophilic drugs and polymers into aqueous phase (continuous phase) and organic phase (dispersed phase), both individually and involving a mixing process. Using this method, we produced ciprofloxacin-loaded NPs by Poly (d,l-lactic acid)-Dextran (PLA-DEX) and Poly lactic acid-co-glycolic acid-Polyethylene glycol (PLGA-PEG) successfully, with a considerable drug-loading ability up to 27.2 wt% and an in vitro sustained release for up to six days. Drug content with NPs can be precisely tuned by changing the initial drug feed concentration of ciprofloxacin. These studies suggest that this modified nanoprecipitation method is a rapid, facile, and reproducible technique for making nano-scale drug delivery carriers with high drug-loading abilities