Sustained and controlled release of lipophilic drugs from a self-assembling amphiphilic peptide hydrogel

Maria Lucia Briuglia, Andrew Urquhart, Dimitrios Lamprou

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

49 Citations (Scopus)
153 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Materials which undergo self-assembly to form supermolecular structures can provide alternative strategies to drug loading problems in controlled release application. RADA 16 is a simple and versatile self-assembling peptide with a designed structure formed of two distinct surfaces, one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic that are positioned such a well-ordered fashion allowing precise assembly into a predetermined organization. A “smart” architecture in nanostructures can represent a good opportunity to use RADA16 as a carrier system for hydrophobic drugs solving problems of drugs delivery. In this work, we have investigated the diffusion properties of Pindolol, Quinine and Timolol Maleate from RADA16 in PBS and in BSS-PLUS at 37 °C. A sustained, controlled, reproducible and efficient drug release has been detected for all the systems, which has allow to understand the dependence of release kinetics on the physicochemical characteristics of RADA16 structural and chemical properties of the selected drugs and the nature of solvents used. For the analysis various physicochemical characterization techniques were used in order to investigate the state of the peptide before and after the drugs were added. Not only does RADA16 optimise drug performance, but it can also provide a solution for drug delivery issues associated with lipophilic drugs.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)103–111
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Pharmaceutics
Volume474
Issue number1-2
Early online date20 Aug 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Oct 2014

Keywords

  • controlled release
  • amphiphilic hydrogels
  • spectroscopy
  • AFM
  • lipophilic drugs

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