Gastro-intestinal sustained release of phytic acid by molecularly imprinted microparticles

In this work, the possibility to employ molecularly imprinted polymers as base excipients for controlled drug delivery devices was demonstrated. As template molecule, our attention was focused on phytic acid, a water soluble antioxidant compound. The possibility to raise a controlled/sustained release of an antioxidant agent is very useful from an application point of view; in recent years, indeed, biomedical applications of antioxidants have greatly grown because the link between human diseases and oxidative stress were proved. Polymers were synthesized using methacrylic acid as functional monomer and N,N'-Ethylenebis(acrylamide) as crosslinker. After the evaluation of the imprinting efficiency of the synthesized materials by binding experiments in which the percentage of phytic acid bounded by the molecularly imprinted polymers was found to be remarkably higher compared to the non-imprinted ones, MIP were tested as a controlled release device for the antioxidant in gastrointestinal simulating fluids.