In Vitro and In Silico Studies of Chitin and Chitosan Based Nanocarriers for Curcumin and Insulin Delivery

The evaluation of drug delivery potential, molecular interactions of the polymeric nanoparticles with the drug molecule and release kinetics encounters more time consumption and also cost. In this study, we have adopted the combination of in vitro and in silico approaches to evaluate the drug delivery property of the polymeric nanoparticles viz. chitin and chitosan. Herein, two different therapeutic agents such as curcumin (a hydrophobic drug) and insulin (a therapeutic protein) were used to study the delivery potential of chitin and chitosan nanoparticles. The drug loaded chitin and chitosan nanoparticles were prepared and characterized using Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy analysis. In the in vitro drug delivery experiments, chitosan nanoparticles exhibited better encapsulation efficiency, drug loading capacity and prolonged release of the drug molecules than that of the chitin nanoparticles to both curcumin and insulin. Meanwhile the in silico experiments such as molecular docking and molecular dynamics predicted the molecular interactions and binding energy involved between the nanoparticles and the drug molecules. From this study, we suggest that the chitosan nanoparticles could be used as a carrier molecule for both curcumin and insulin.