Mixed micellar drug
delivery systems for poorly soluble active
pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are easy to produce and long-term
stable, because they represent equilibrium structures. However, their
fate after intravenous injection is still largely unknown. Once injected
into the bloodstream, they can potentially convert to vesicles or
disappear altogether, with both API and excipients being picked up
by blood components. Our study aimed at reducing the gap between the
good, quantitative understanding of aqueous glycocholate (GC)–lecithin
dispersions alone and the highly complex situation in the blood. To
this end, we extended the pseudophase model previously established
for lipid–detergent dispersions to include the detergent-binding
protein albumin as another component. The model predicted a quaternary
phase diagram with planar phase boundaries defined by key parameters
of the ternary subsystems, which were then determined by isothermal
titration calorimetry. They include the aqueous GC concentration upon
bilayer-micelle coexistence, 5.2 mM, the GC-to-lipid mole ratios in
coexisting bilayers (R
e
sat = 0.2) and micelles (R
e
sol = 0.7),
as well as the capacity of the albumin to bind 0.1 GC molecules with
a dissociation constant of K
D = 0.1 mM
and 6 GC molecules with K
D = 0.7 mM. Subsequent
measurements in the quaternary system showed phase boundaries in good
agreement with the model predictions. In addition, the critical micelle
concentration of GC shows a minimal value (midpoint of transition)
of 9.1 mM at the temperature of 24 °C where the demicellization
enthalpy is zero. The demicellization process is accompanied by a
heat capacity change of 29 cal/mol K. The model improves the understanding
of the mixed micellar drug delivery systems. The success of the approach
encourages including even more blood components, like lipoproteins,
to a quantitative treatment.