Electroencapsulation of Mesoporous Silicon Particles for Controlled Oral Drug Delivery

Abstract

<p> Mesoporous silicon (PSi) has lately been the focus of interest as a potential new orally dosed drug carrier in a steeply increasing number of papers, where the strengths of PSi in such applications has been shown. Perhaps most importantly, drugs will remain in an amorphous form instead of crystallizing while loaded into the pores of PSi. The advantage of this is greatly increased solubility and dissolution rate of the drug. In the present work, we investigate the possibility of enhancing the drug carrier functionality of PSi micro- and nanoparticles by encapsulating the drug loaded PSi particles in a suitable polymer capsule structure by the method of collision of oppositely charged, electrosprayed droplets. Embed-ding the PSi particles in such polymer structure of micrometer scale will not only vastly im-prove the workability of PSi nanoparticles and the smallest of microparticles, but with suit-able material choices will also potentially enable targeted release of the drug loaded PSi par-ticles to a desired part of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This would help towards eliminating the intestinal first-pass effect of an orally dosed drug, which together with the already advan-tageous properties of PSi would result in an increased bioavailability of the drug. The gained advantage would be significant, since it has been estimated that more than 95% of new drug candidates suffer from poor pharmacokinetic properties, resulting in poor bioavailability.</p>