Preparation of berbamine loaded chitosan-agarose microspheres and in vitro release study
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Hu, Zhang; Li, Sidong; Yang, Lei
- Source
- Polímeros. January 2012 22(5)
- Subject
- Chitosan
agarose
microspheres
berbamine
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 0104-1428
Berbamine loaded chitosan-agarose microspheres were prepared using a water-in-oil emulsion technique. Optimum preparing parameters were determined by orthogonal experiments as follows: ratio of berbamine to chitosan (w/w) is 1:10; percentage of emulsifier (span 80, v/v) is 6%; volume of glutaraldehyde is 2 mL; and reaction temperature is 70 ºC. Under these optimal conditions, the encapsulation efficiency and loading capacity of microspheres are 84.57% and 8.44%, respectively. The swelling tests showed that the microspheres possessed higher swelling ratio at pH 7.4 than at pH 1.2. FTIR indicated that berbamine had been successfully loaded in the chitosan-agarose microspheres by physical entrapment. In vitro release studies showed that berbamine was released from microspheres in a significantly sustained fashion.