Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Development of Alginate/Chitosan Microparticles for Dust Mite Allergen

Tittaya Suksamran, Praneet Opanasopit , Theerasak Rojanarata, Tanasait Ngawhirunpat

Faculty of Pharmacy, Silpakorn University, Nakhon Pathom 73000, Thailand;

For correspondence:- Praneet Opanasopit Email: praneet@su.ac.th Tel:+6634255800

Received: 17 November 2010 Accepted: 11 April 2011 Published: 24 June 2011

Citation: Suksamran T, Opanasopit P, Rojanarata T, Ngawhirunpat T. Development of Alginate/Chitosan Microparticles for Dust Mite Allergen. Trop J Pharm Res 2011; 10(3):317-324 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v10i3.8

© 2011 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To develop chitosan/alginate microparticles for the mucosal delivery of allergen from dust mite (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus).

Methods: Chitosan/alginate microparticles were prepared by ionotropic gelation. The effects of polymer content, crosslinking agent, and preparation method on the physicochemical characteristics of the microparticles as well as their in vitro cytotoxicity were investigated.

Results: The microparticles were small (1 - 17 µm) and spherical in shape. The highest allergen content (0.30 ± 0.07 mg/g) was obtained with 2.5 % initial allergen loading in chitosan- triphosphate (CS-TPP) microparticles. Sustained allergen release (approx. 50 % over 24 h) was observed from alginate-coated chitosan microparticles. Allergen incorporation method and initial drug-loading could be varied to obtain optimum particle size with high allergen-loading and sustained release. The cytotoxicity of various microparticle formulations did not differ significantly (p > 0.05 ), as cell viability values were close to 100 %.

Conclusion: This study indicates that alginate and alginate-coated chitosan microparticles are safe and can be further developed for mucosal allergen delivery.

Keywords: Alginate, Chitosan, Microparticle, Allergen delivery, Dust mite, Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus