Complex polysaccharide-based nanocomposites for 2 oral insulin delivery

Abstract

Polyelectrolyte nanocomposites rarely reach a stable state and aggregation often occurs. Here, we report the synthesis of nanocomposites for the oral delivery of insulin composed of alginate, dextran sulfate, poly-(ethyleneglycol) 4000, Poloxamer 188®, chitosan, and BSA. Chitosan seems to be essential for the final size of the nanocomposites. When the chitosan concentration used in the synthesis is 10-4 gcm-3, nanocomposites, microcomposites and milimetric composites are obtained. Reducing the chitosan concentration to 10-5 or 10-7 gcm-3 yields nanocomposites of 400-600 nm or 800-900 nm hydrodynamic diameter, respectively, measured by DLS. According to our results, the molecular weight of chitosan has little influence on the size of the composites. The enhanced stability of the newest nanocomposites synthesized was assessed with LUMiSizer®. The rounded shapes of the nanocomposites were confirmed by scanning electron microscopy. Analysis by HPLC revealed that, after loaded with insulin, about 80% of the drug was released from our nanocomposites.