Preparation of nanoparticles of shellac and shellac-oligomer conjugates

Abstract

Shellac is a natural biodegradable oligoester produced by lac insects, containing reactive functional groups such as hydroxyl, carboxylic acid, ester, aldehyde, and alkene groups, which can be used for chemical functionalization. Herein, shellac is functionalized with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) or poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) via grafting-to and grafting-from methods. The functional polymer conjugates are then processed as nanoparticles by the miniemulsion-solvent evaporation process. Shellac-PEG nanoparticles are enriched with apolipoprotein AI after incubation in fetal bovine serum at 37 °C. Moreover, shellac-PNIPAM nanoparticles adsorb specifically prothrombin at 37 °C (T > volume phase transition temperature, VPTT).

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Nanoparticle
• PEGylation
• PNIPAM
• shellac
• temperature-responsive

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank P. Punthong and S. Buttranon for their help with the protein adsorption experiments. In addition, we are grateful to Excelacs Co., Ltd. for providing shellac.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology and the Office of the Higher Education Commission (OHEC) of Thailand.