Preparation of glucosamine-loaded alginate-chitosan nanoparticles

Abstract

Glucosamine-loaded nanoparticles were prepared based on ionotropic gelation method using calcium ion, alginate, and chitosan or two chitosan derivatives that carried permanent positively charged ammonium groups. The two derivatives synthesized in this work were N,N,N-trimethylammonium chitosan chloride (TMC) with degree of quaternization (DQ) of 35% and N-[(2-hydroxyl-3-trimethylammo-nium)propyl]chitosan chloride (HTCC) with DQ of 11 and 33%. Appling the sonication time up to 20 min caused the reduction of particle size by 36.8%. In this work however no direct relationship between the molecular weight of chitosan and the particles size was observed. At the same concentration of cationic polymers, the use of HTCC tended to give smaller particles size than did the chitosan or TMC. The HTCC with high DQ (33%) when incorporated with alginate gave smaller particle size than the one with lower DQ (11%). The amount of glucosamine released was analyzed using HPLC technique. The release profiles of all particle types with show linear relationship between the cumulative amount of GH release and time in the course of 360 min. No ‘burst’ effect was also observed in these particle systems. The particle had a core-shell feature as characterized by TEM