Coating Chitosan Thin Shells: A Facile Technique to Improve Dispersion Stability of Magnetoliposomes

Magnetoliposomes (ML) have been emerging as a novel multifunctional nanoparticle with a wide range of biomedical and therapeutic applications over the past decade. Although the ML system has shown excellent performances, the stability and lipid peroxidation of liposomal components are still remaining as key issues and need to be solved for intensive applications. Changing zeta potential of nanoparticles' surface can be seen as a potential way to achieve the stable dispersion. In this work, we have employed the positive charged, abundant and cheap chitosan to coat ML in order to change the zeta potential of the ML system and examined the stability of chitosan@magnetoliposomes (CML) in long-term storage. The combining of pH-sensitive chitosan with temperature-sensitive phospholipid formed a novel pH- and temperature-sensitive nanoparticles which can be promisingly used as controllable drug release applications. These novel CML with chitosan thin shells showed excellent stability in long-term storage; meanwhile, the bare ML sample showed aggregations and forming micrometer-size particles. The CML system can achieve a drug encapsulation efficiency of nearly 50% and an enhanced drug release behavior under pH 5 at 45 °C.