Evaluation of gliadins nanoparticles as drug delivery systems: a study of three different drugs

In this paper, biopolymer nanoparticles are studied, which unlike many synthetic carriers used for controlled release, are biocompatible and biodegradable systems. Gliadins nanoparticles are obtained by a desolvatation method, also known as drawning-out precipitation. These particles have been shown to be interesting as drug release systems for all-trans-retinoic acid. The aim of this paper was to study the influence of the polarity of different drugs on nanoparticle characteristics such as size and drug loading efficiency. Three drugs of three different polarities were studied: the hydrophobic Vitamin E (VE), the slightly polar mixture of linalool and of linalyl acetate (LLA) and the cationic amphiphilic benzalkonium chloride (BZC). This comparative work shows that the amount of the entrapped VE and LLA is higher than that of the cationic BZC, confirming a strong interaction between gliadins and apolar compounds, due to the apolarity of the proteins. This interaction results in a low diffusion coefficient and a partition coefficient in favour of gliadins, resulting in a low permeability coefficient. The drug release kinetics of two substances, LLA and BZC, are observed, in showing a burst effect, then a diffusion process, which can be modelled assuming that the particles are homogeneous spheres. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.