Box-Behnken Designed Eluxadoline Loaded Chitosan Nanoparticles for the Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Abstract

A recently approved drug eluxadoline shows promise as a treatment and management for irritable bowel syndrome-D. However, because of its low water solubility, which results in a low dissolution rate and oral bioavailability, its applications have been limited. The current study aims to cure irritable bowel syndrome by developing chitosan nanoparticles containing eluxadoline. Box-Behnken Design Expert software was used to optimize the chitosan nanoparticles loaded with eluxadoline that had been developed. Sodium tripolyphosphate was used as a cross-linking agent in the ionic gelation process to developed the Eluxadoline-loaded chitosan nanoparticles. The effects of chitosan concentration (X1), sodium tripolyphosphate concentration (X2), and sodium tripolyphosphate volume (X3) on particle size, PDI, zeta potential and entrapment efficacy from nanoparticles were investigated. The results revealed that entrapment efficiency was highest at low level of chitosan concentration, high level of Sodium tripolyphosphate concentration and low levels of Sodium tripolyphosphate volume. Based on the particle size (300.4), PDI (0.305), zeta potential (41.2mV), and entrapment efficacy (76.89%), the resulting formulation was optimized. The efficiency of the drug release from optimised formulation was studied in vitro by using a dialysis bag diffusion technique in buffer condition 6.8 pH intestinal conditions. The optimized formulation showed a sustained release behaviour with maximum drug release 80.23%. Accordingly, the results proved that the developed chitosan-based polymeric nanoparticles can act as a potential approach for the effective delivery of eluxadoline through oral administration for irritable bowel syndrome diarrhoea treatment.