Encapsulation of paclitaxel in electrosprayed chitosan nanoparticles

Abstract

Paclitaxel is an anti-cancer drug, used to treat ovarian, breast and non-small-cell lung cancer amongothers. The low aqueous solubility of paclitaxel is a limiting factor for its application. Thus, paclitaxel is solubilized withhelp of surfactants and co-solvents, approved as Taxol®. Unfortunately, serious side effects like life-threateninghypersensitivity reactions and hemo-toxicity are limiting its use. Due to this, alternative formulations of paclitaxel arerequired. Nanoparticles represent an important approach to improve the poor solubility of drugs. In that context,electrospray for the preparation of nanoparticles is a promising approach. Due to these facts it was aimed in this studyto develop and characterize paclitaxel loaded zein nanoparticles with and without the addition of chitosan. For thatpurpose the influence of the preparation parameters like the applied voltage and the flow rate on the characteristicproperties of the particles were investigated step by step. The nanoparticles were characterized by investigating theirparticle size, size distribution, zeta potential, shapes and morphologies with help of dynamic light scattering,encapsulation efficiencies and AFM images, respectively. It was succeeded to prepare paclitaxel loaded zeinnanoparticles without chitosan at a voltage of 22.5 kV and a flow rate of 0.2 ml/h having a particle size of 231 nm andan encapsulation effciency of 89%, while the paclitaxel loaded zein nanoparticles with chitosan had a particle size of 339nm and an encapsulation effciency of 94%, prepared with 22.5 kV and a flow rate of 0.3 ml/h.