Phosphoglyceride‐coated polylactic acid porous microspheres and its regulation of curcumin release behavior

Abstract

Polymer microspheres are widely used as carriers in delivering of hydrophobic or hydrophilic drugs. Surface coating of microspheres could be one of the attractive strategies to improve their properties. In this study, biodegradable polymer polylactic acid was dissolved in chloroform and non-solvent to electrospray porous polymer microspheres. The properties of the microspheres were improved by phosphoglyceride (P-P-Gly) coating, and its behavior was investigated by loading with curcumin as a model drug. The morphologies of different microspheres were observed by scanning electron microscope. The results indicated that the microspheres obtained by dimethyl sulfoxide as nonsolvent could form the structure with porous characteristics. X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed that P-P-Gly was successfully coated on the surface of the microspheres. In addition, the thermal behavior of the coated microspheres was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry. In vitro release experiments indicated that the drug-loaded microspheres showed a very gentle release trend, which was mainly due to the P-P-Gly coating could not completely cover the pores of the microspheres. The P-P-Gly-coated microspheres prepared in this work can be used as controlled release drug carriers with special needs.

Progress in the application of sustained-release drug microspheres in tissue engineering

“…A microsphere is a micron-sized sphere consisting of a continuous phase of one or more mixed and dissolved polymers, in which drugs and other components are dispersed or dissolved in a matrix [ 9 ]. Microspheres can be divided into solid microspheres, double-layer microspheres, hollow microspheres [ 10 ], and porous microspheres [ 11 , 12 ]. In a solid microsphere, the entire microsphere is dense.…”