Investigation of Sustained Release of 5- Fluoro Uracil Drug from Chitosan-co-Lactic acid Nanoparticles

Abstract

There are several anticancer drugs that are sparingly soluble in water and, therefore, one needs to explore novel kind of drug delivery systems for these drugs. In this work, we have reported the synthesis of chitosan-co-lactic acid nanoparticles and evaluated how efficiently do they deliver 5- Fluoro uracil drug. The prepared nanoparticles were loaded with 5- Fluoro uracil and in vitro kinetics of 5- Fluoro uracil was studied spectrophotometrically at physiological pH (7.4) and room temperature. The cumulative drug release was found to increase with increasing percent loading. The influences of experimental parameters like simulated physiological fluids, temperature, varying chemical composition of the chitosan-co-lactic acid nanoparticles, temperature, and pH of the release medium were studied on the release kinetics of the drug. An optimum drug release was obtained in the PBS as compared to other simulated fluids. In the case of temperature, the drug release increased up to 30°C while it decreased with further increase in temperature. In the case of chitosan and lactic acid, an optimum cumulative drug release was observed at the definite composition of chitosan and lactic acid. By using Fick’s law equation, the diffusional exponents (n) were evaluated for different compositions of nanoparticles. The kind of drug release process of 5- Fluoro uracil was analyzed by using the kinetic data.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Keywords:

• Nanoparticles
• Drug Loading
• Drug Release
• Anticancer drug