Pollen-Inspired Adhesive Multilobe Microparticles from Microfluidics for Intestinal Drug Delivery

Microparticles (MPs)-based delivery systems have a demonstrated value in gastrointestinal administration. Research in this area is focusing on the development of multifunctional MPs to improve delivery effects. Herein, learning from the natural morphology of peony pollens, novel multilobe MPs delivery systems for target surface adhesion and durable drug release are pesented. Ascribing to the flexibility of microfluidic technology and the combination of selective hydrogel degradation methods, MPs with a series of multilobe structures can be obtained using alginate and methacrylated gelatin. Compared with spherical MPs, these multilobe MPs are elucidated to show excellent adhesion capacity due to their enhanced contact area. By encapsulating anti-inflammatory agent dexamethasone (DXM) into their matrix hydrogel, the resultant multilobe MPs delivery systems are verified to feature durable drug-release property and anti-inflammatory efficacy, which is further demonstrated in rats with inflammatory bowel disease. These results indicated that the biomimetic multilobe MPs are potentially ideal adhesive and durable drug-delivery vehicles for gastrointestinal drug administrations.