Abrami Michela, Marizza Paolo, Zecchin Francesca, Bertoncin Paolo, Marson Domenico, Lapasin Romano, de Riso Filomena, Posocco Paola, Grassi Gabriele, Grassi Mario
Department of Engineering and Architecture, Trieste University, via Valerio 6, I-34127 Trieste, Italy.
Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Piazzale Europa 1, I-34127 Trieste, Italy.
Gels. 2019 Apr 18;5(2):22. doi: 10.3390/gels5020022.
The new concepts of personalized and precision medicine require the design of more and more refined delivery systems. In this frame, hydrogels can play a very important role as they represent the best surrogate of soft living tissues for what concerns rheological properties. Thus, this paper focusses on a global theoretical approach able to describe how hydrogel polymeric networks can affect the release kinetics of drugs characterized by different sizes. The attention is focused on a case study dealing with an interpenetrated hydrogel made up by alginate and poly(-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone).
Information about polymeric network characteristics (mesh size distribution and polymer volume fraction) is deduced from the theoretical interpretation of the rheological and the low field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) characterization of hydrogels. This information is then, embodied in the mass balance equation whose resolution provides the release kinetics.
Our simulations indicate the influence of network characteristics on release kinetics. In addition, the reliability of the proposed approach is supported by the comparison of the model outcome with experimental release data.
This study underlines the necessity of a global theoretical approach in order to design reliable delivery systems based on hydrogels.
个性化和精准医学的新概念要求设计出越来越精细的给药系统。在此框架下，水凝胶因其流变学特性是柔软生物组织的最佳替代物，可发挥非常重要的作用。因此，本文聚焦于一种全局理论方法，该方法能够描述水凝胶聚合物网络如何影响不同尺寸药物的释放动力学。重点关注一个由藻酸盐和聚（乙烯基 - 2 - 吡咯烷酮）组成的互穿水凝胶的案例研究。
通过对水凝胶的流变学和低场核磁共振（NMR）表征的理论解释，推导出聚合物网络特性（网孔尺寸分布和聚合物体积分数）的信息。然后，将此信息纳入质量平衡方程，其求解可得到释放动力学。
我们的模拟表明网络特性对释放动力学的影响。此外，通过将模型结果与实验释放数据进行比较，支持了所提出方法的可靠性。
本研究强调了采用全局理论方法来设计基于水凝胶的可靠给药系统的必要性。
