Roles of alcohol desolvating agents on the size control of bovine serum albumin nanoparticles in drug delivery system

Nanoparticles made of bovine serum albumins (BSA) have shown great application value in medical field as drug carriers because of albumin's excellent biocompatibility. BSA nanoparticles are generally fabricated through coacervation process, which can be strongly affected by pH, temperature, dropping speed, and different desolvating agents, such as ethanol, acetone. However, the influence of different alcohols as desolvating agents on BSA nanoparticles has not been systematically clarified so far. Herein, ethanol, propyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol were chosen as desolvating agents to produce BSA nanoparticles and the obtained nanoparticles were studied comprehensively in terms of their size, polydispersity, morphology, yield, spectroscopic property, encapsulation efficiency, and in vitro cell uptake. The results show that propyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol had stronger coacervation ability to produce nanoparticles with larger sizes and higher yields, while it would be easier to control the size of the nanoparticles produced with ethanol. BSA nanoparticles produced with all of the three alcohols could be taken by MCF-7 cells, suggesting that they are suitable to be used as drug carriers. This work provides a good choice of alcohol derived desolvating agents for further studies on BSA nanoparticles and their potential applications in drug delivery systems.