Nanoparticle structure transformation of mPEG grafted chitosan with rigid backbone induced by a-cyclodextrin

This paper presented an interesting nanoparticle-based drug delivery system with morphology transition behavior depending on the content of exposed PEG chain on the particle surface, which is adjustable by addition of different amount of cyclodextrin(a-CD). The effect of a-CD inclusion to the self-assembly behavior of methoxy polyethylene glycol(mPEG) grafted chitosan(CS) was studied. The results showed that the mPEG grafted chitosan(mPEG-[9_TD$IF]g-CS) forms self-assembled nanoparticles with either micelle or hollow sphere morphology depending on the ratio of a-CD to mPEG, as characterized by atomic force microscopy(AFM), transmission electron microscopy(TEM), and X-ray diffraction(XRD). Their sizes and zeta potential increased from 257.6 nmto 768.2 nm and from +4.5 mV to +11.6 mV, respectively, with the increasing amount of a-CD. The correlation between zeta potential and particle size of a-CD/mPEG-[9_TD$IF]g-CS nanoparticles indicated varied PEG density on surface of nanoparticles. Based on the above experimental observations, a likely mechanism for the morphological transition of the rod-coil graft copolymer mPEG-[9_TD$IF]g-CS was proposed.

This paper presented an interesting nanoparticle-based drug delivery system with morphology transition behavior depending on the content of exposed PEG chain on the particle surface, which is adjustable by addition of different amount of cyclodextrin(α-CD). The effect of α-CD inclusion to the self-assembly behavior of methoxy polyethylene glycol(mPEG) grafted chitosan(CS) was studied. The results showed that the mPEG grafted chitosan(mPEG-g-CS) forms self-assembled nanoparticles with either micelle or hollow sphere morphology depending on the ratio of α-CD to mPEG, as characterized by atomic force microscopy(AFM), transmission electron microscopy(TEM), and X-ray diffraction(XRD). Their sizes and zeta potential increased from 257.6 nmto 768.2 nm and from +4.5 mV to +11.6 mV, respectively, with the increasing amount of α-CD. The correlation between zeta potential and particle size of α-CD/mPEG-g-CS nanoparticles indicated varied PEG density on surface of nanoparticles. Based on the above experimental observations, a likely mechanism for the morphological transition of the rod-coil graft copolymer mPEG-g-CS was proposed.