Development of rGO encapsulated polymeric beads as drug delivery system for improved loading and controlled release...

Objective: The aim of this study was to design a biodegradable core-shell structure where in reduced graphene-oxide (rGO) and doxycycline (DXC) drug comprise the core while polymer such as chitosan (CS) and alginate (ALG) acts as shell for attaining high loading efficiency and sustained release of drug.Significance: Cytotoxic drug used in conventional chemotherapeutic methods usually suffer from poor site selectivity and this has been resolved by using targeted delivery of anticancer drug with controlled drug release property.Methods: The structural and morphological properties of as synthesized drug delivery carrier were characterized by a range of techniques. Drug encapsulation efficiency and the studies on, in vitro release of the drug from these nanocarriers at different concentrations of rGO were carried out.Results: Across all batches of rGO-polymeric beads, the highest loading capacity of 85% was noted for rGO of wt 5 mg/ml. Further, for the formulations of only rGO, highest LE of 90% was noticed in 1 h and 100% loading was noticed in 3 h. The interaction of DXC and its release from the nanocarriers were controlled by the pH changes. At pH 1.2 for rGO-polymeric beads + DXC, the DXC release was reached 27.4% after 2 h; and at pH 5.4, the same beads liberated 57% of the drug after 4 h; and at pH 7.4 after 8 h, 90% of DXC was released into the medium.Conclusions: rGO-polymeric beads supported long-lasting and continuous DXC release which is slower at acidic pH (endosomal pH) than at physiological.