Temperature and pH Responsive Microfibers for Controllable and Variable Ibuprofen Delivery

Abstract

Electrospun microfibers (MFs) composed of pH and temperature responsive polymers can be used for controllable and variable delivery of ibuprofen. First, electrospinning technique was employed to prepare poly( -caprolactone) (PCL) and poly(Nisopropylacrylamide-co-methacrylic acid) (pNIPAM-co-MAA) MFs containing ibuprofen. It was found that drug release rates from PCL MFs cannot be significantly varied by either temperature (22-40 ∘ C) or pH values (1.7-7.4). In contrast, the ibuprofen (IP) diffusion rates from pNIPAM-co-MAA MFs were very sensitive to changes in both temperature and pH. The IP release from pNIPAM-co-MAA MFs was highly linear and controllable when the temperature was above the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of pNIPAM-co-MAA (33 ∘ C) and the pH was lower than the pK of carboxylic acids (pH 2). At room temperature, however, the release rate was dramatically increased by nearly ten times compared to that at higher temperature and lower pH. Such a unique and controllable drug delivery system could be naturally envisioned to find many practical applications in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences such as programmable transdermal drug delivery.

Fiber Based Approaches as Medicine Delivery Systems

“…In this study, pure PDS fibers were fabricated as a control. It was noticed that while the highest 95 PCL/pNIPAM-co-MAA Ibuprofen Anti-inflammatory drug action pNIPAM-co-MAA fibers were 1608 nm, PCL was 1237 nm Abidian et al 96 fiber diameters were observed in pure PDS fibers at 1,158 ± 402 nm, the lowest diameters were observed in 25 wt % CIP incorporated fibers. Furthermore, fibers with higher weight percentage of incorporated therapeutic molecules released drugs for longer than others.…”

“…Tran et al incorporated two types of ibuprofen (an antiinflammatory drug) into the microfibers using an electrospinning approach. 95 One type of microfibers were fabricated from polycaprolactone (PCL), while the other type was composed of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-methacrylic acid) (pNIPAM-co-MAA). The average diameter of PCL fibers was 1237 nm, whereas that of pNIPAM-co-MAA fibers was 1608 nm.…”

“…Programmable transdermal drug delivery is one such exploratory application of micro- and nanofibers in drug delivery systems. Tran et al incorporated two types of ibuprofen (an anti-inflammatory drug) into the microfibers using an electrospinning approach . One type of microfibers were fabricated from polycaprolactone (PCL), while the other type was composed of poly­( N -isopropylacrylamide- co -methacrylic acid) (pNIPAM- co -MAA).…”

Electrospun Nanofibers: Recent Applications in Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy

“…Indeed, these authors fabricated NFs with a core/shell structure made of ES100 for the shell and Eudragit L100 (EL100) for the core to allow the controlled release at certain pH conditions, and controlled this release using the cover thickness [57]. Tran et al [58] introduced ibuprofen into pH- and thermo-responsive polymers for controlled drug delivery investigations. Ibuprofen was initially mixed with a polymeric solution of PCL as the control experiment and also into poly(Nisopropylacrylamide-co-methacrylic acid) (pNIPAM-co-MAA) to fabricate stimuli-responsive NFs by blend electrospinning.…”

Biomimetic Thermal-sensitive Multi-transform Actuator

“…Patterning of the actuating elements within the device structure can produce complex shape transformations through a series of discrete manipulations 17,20 . To date, these demonstrated multi-transforming gel actuated structures need complicated fabrication methods such as electrospinning with controlled fiber orientation 23,25 and stripe polymerization using photo-masking techniques 19,20,23,24 . In the present study, we demonstrate control of the gel actuation by incorporating variants of PNIPAM to give a range of LCSTs within the same device.…”