pH-driven self-assembly of alcohol-free curcumin-loaded propylene glycol alginate nanoparticles

• Published in: International journal of biological macromolecules 2022-01, Vol.195, p.302-308
• Main Authors: Yuan, Yongkai, Ma, Mengjie, Zhang, Shuaizhong, Wang, Dongfeng, Xu, Ying
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Nanoparticles; pH-driven self-assembly; Propylene glycol alginate
• ISSN: 0141-8130; 1879-0003
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.12.025

The purpose of this paper was to explore the application of propylene glycol alginate (PGA) alone in alcohol-free curcumin-loaded nanoparticles (PGA/Cur) prepared by a pH-driven method to solve the curcumin shortcomings of low water solubility, stability and bioavailability. One of the bright spots of PGA/Cur was its extremely high loading capacity. PGA/Cur formed a spherical structure mainly by hydrophobic interaction and hydrogen bonding, making curcumin amorphous. PGA/Cur exhibited stability at pH 4.0–8.0 due to its high surface charges. PGA/Cur still showed a unimodal size distribution even under 3000 mM ionic strength. Heating caused uneven size distribution, but the smaller size still presented its thermostability. PGA/Cur exhibited good physical stability and slowed down the curcumin degradation with t1/2 of 37.47 days during storage. PGA/Cur could maintain structural integrity in gastric acid and released curcumin in the intestine, thus improving the bioaccessibility of curcumin. Additionally, PGA/Cur displayed the solubilization after lyophilization. •Propylene glycol alginate alone can form nanoparticles by pH-driven method.•The perspective of carrier design is economy, simplicity, energy saving and safety.•The unique advantage of nanoparticles is high loading capacity.•The nanoparticles had good physicochemical stability and bioaccessibility.•The nanoparticles showed solubilization of curcumin after lyophilization.