A novel method for encapsulation of poorly water-soluble drugs:: precipitation in polyelectrolyte multilayer shells

A novel method to include poorly water-soluble substances into the polyelectrolyte, capsules of defined size, stability, composition and affinity properties is proposed. Encapsulation explores the polarity gradient across the capsule wall. Capsules creation makes use of electrostatic interaction and can involve many substances as layer constituents, such as synthetic polyelectrolytes, proteins, nucleic acids, lipids and multivalent dyes. Using capsules made of synthetic polyelectrolytes as a model system was demonstrated how to prepare, to measure and to use this gradient for low molecular weigh materials encapsulation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.