Characterization and Degradation Behavior of Agar–Carbomer Based Hydrogels for Drug Delivery Applications: Solute Effect

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

Filippo Rossi²  Marco Santoro²  Tommaso Casalini²  Pietro Veglianese¹  Maurizio Masi² 

[1] Dipartimento di Neuroscienze, Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”, via La Masa 19, 20156 Milano, Italy; E-Mail:;Dipartimento di Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, 20131 Milano, Italy; E-Mails:

关键词: degradation;    drug effect;    FT-IR;    hydrogels;    rheology;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms12063394

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

In this study hydrogels synthesized from agarose and carbomer 974P macromers were selected for their potential application in spinal cord injury (SCI) repair strategies following their ability to carry cells and drugs. Indeed, in drug delivery applications, one of the most important issues to be addressed concerns hydrogel ability to provide a finely controlled delivery of loaded drugs, together with a coherent degradation kinetic. Nevertheless, solute effects on drug delivery system are often neglected in the large body of literature, focusing only on the characterization of unloaded matrices. For this reason, in this work, hydrogels were loaded with a chromophoric salt able to mimic, in terms of steric hindrance, many steroids commonly used in SCI repair, and its effects were investigated both from a structural and a rheological point of view, considering the pH-sensitivity of the material. Additionally, degradation chemistry was assessed by means of infrared bond response (FT-IR) and mass loss.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2011 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.