Preparation and Characterization of Water-Soluble Chitosan Microparticles Loaded with Insulin Using the Polyelectrolyte Complexation Method

Polymeric delivery systems based on microparticles have emerged as a promising approach for peroral insulin delivery. The amount of insulin was quantified by the improved Bradford method. It was shown that water-soluble chitosan/insulin/tripolyphosphate (TPP) mass ratio played an important role in microparticles formation. Stable, uniform, and spherical water-soluble chitosan microparticles (WSC-MPs) with high insulin association efficiency were formed at or close to optimized WSC/insulin/TPP mass ratio. WSC-MPs had higher association efficiency in the pH 4.0 and pH 9.7 of TPP solution. The results showed that association efficiency and loading capacity of insulin-loaded WSC-MPs prepared in 0.01 mol/L HCl of insulin were 48.28 ± 0.90% and 9.52 ± 1.34%. The average size of insulin-loaded WSC-MPs was 292 nm. The presented WSC microparticulate system has promising properties towards the development of an oral delivery system for insulin.