Preparation and characterization of mucinated agarose: A mucin–agarose physical crosslink

Efficient, biocompatible and biodegradable new polymer materials are continually being sought to meet the challenging needs of drug delivery. Mucinated agarose, a physical crosslink of mucin and agarose, which are both biodegradable natural polymers, has been successfully prepared by a temperature controlled coarcervation technique of aqueous dispersions of equal concentrations of both polymers. Some functional and physicochemical characteristics of the new polymer such as swelling, moisture uptake, mucoadhesive as well as the thermal properties were determined and compared to those of agarose and mucin alone. Turbidimetric interaction between the aqueous dispersions of mucin and agarose was used to determine the concentration ratio of optimum interaction between the two polymers. A concentration ratio mix of four parts mucin and six parts agarose was obtained as the concentration ratio of optimum interaction. A 1:1 dispersion mix was, however, used for the crosslinking process. The mucinated agarose showed characteristic swelling, mucoadhesiveness, moisture uptake and DSC thermal properties that were different from those of mucin and agarose alone. The results indicated that there was formation of a crosslink between mucin and agarose.