Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore, 4 Engineering Drive 4, Singapore.
J Biomed Mater Res A. 2010 Dec 1;95(3):709-16. doi: 10.1002/jbm.a.32867.
Herein, it is demonstrated that coaxial electrohydrodynamic atomization can be used for the fabrication of microspheres with distinct core/shell structure. This allows the encapsulation of two different types of drugs in different compartments in one single step. In Group A, we prepared microspheres in which the core and the shell contain hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs, respectively. In contrast, in Group B, the opposite is prepared. While the former can be achieved by using amphiphilic polymers in aqueous environment, the latter is difficult to be prepared. The release patterns of the two groups are significantly different. The release of drugs from Group A microspheres is rather sequential, whereas group B microspheres release drugs in a parallel (co-release) manner. Nevertheless, in both groups, we found that the release of drugs can be easily tailored by altering outer/inner flow ratios. These findings present the advantages and possible application of this multi-drug release system in chemotherapy. Moreover, cell culture experiments have been performed to testify the performances of different microspheres in cytotoxicity and cellular apoptosis in vitro.
本文证明了同轴电动力学雾化可用于制备具有明显核/壳结构的微球。这使得在一步内将两种不同类型的药物封装在不同的隔室内成为可能。在 A 组中，我们制备了芯部和壳部分别含有疏水性和亲水性药物的微球。相比之下，在 B 组中，制备了相反的微球。前者可以在水相环境中使用两亲性聚合物来实现，而后者则难以制备。两组的释放模式有显著差异。A 组微球中药物的释放是顺序的，而 B 组微球则以平行（共释放）的方式释放药物。然而，在这两组中，我们发现通过改变外/内流比可以很容易地调整药物的释放。这些发现展示了这种多药物释放系统在化疗中的优势和可能的应用。此外，还进行了细胞培养实验以验证不同微球在体外细胞毒性和细胞凋亡方面的性能。
