Preparation and characterization of alginate-hyaluronic acid-chitosan based composite gel beads

Abstract

The aim of this study was to fabricate composite gel beads based on natural polysaccharides. Hyaluronic acid (HA) and Chitosan (CS) were successfully admixed with Ca²⁺/alginate (SA) gel system to produce SA/HA/CS gel beads by dual crosslinking: the ionic gelation and the polyelectrolyte complexation. The preparation procedure was that the weight ratio of SA (2%, m/v) to HA (2%, m/v) was kept at 2:1, then the mixture was dripped into the Ca²⁺ solution for ion-crosslinking, and finally polyelectrolyte crosslinked with 2% low molecular weight CS (LMW-CS) for 1.5 hours. The optimal formulation was achieved by adjusting the concentration and the weight ratio of SA, HA and LMW-CS. Due to the incorporation of HA and LMWCS, the swelling ratio of the beads at pH 7.4 was increased up to 120, and the time for the maximum swelling degree was prolonged to 7.5 h. The swelling behavior was obviously improved compared to the pure SA/Ca²⁺ system. The preliminary results clearly suggest that the SA/HA/CS gel beads may be a potential candidate for biomedical delivery vehicles.

Keywords

gel beads / hyaluronic acid / low molecular weight chitosan / alginate

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