Effects of Non-Ionic Micelles on the Acid-Base Equilibria of a Weak Polyelectrolyte.

Weak polyelectrolytes (WPEs) are widely used as pH-responsive materials, pH modulators and charge regulators in biomedical and technological applications that involve multi-component fluid environments. In these complex fluids, coupling between (often weak) interactions induced by micelles, nanoparticles and molecular aggregates modify the pKa as compared to that measured in single component solutions. Here we investigated the effect of coupling between hydrogen bonding and excluded volume interactions on the titration curves and pKa of polyacrylic acid (PAA) in solutions comprising PEO-based micelles (Pluronics and Brij-S20) of different size and volume fraction. Titration experiments of dilute, salt-free solutions of PAA (5 kDa, 30 kDa and 100 kDa) at low degree of polymer ionization (α < 0.25) drive spatial re-organization of the system, reduce the degree of ionization and consequentially increase the pKa by up to ~0.7 units. These findings indicate that the actual degree of ionization of WPEs measured in complex fluids is significantly lower (at a given pH) than that measured in single-component solutions.

Brij-grafted-chitosan copolymers with function of P-glycoprotein modulation: Synthesis, characterization and in vitro investigations.

Chitosan (CS), a nature-derived polysaccharide, is a promising nano-carrier material with good biocompatibility and biodegradability. However, the biomedical applications of CS are hindered because of its poor aqueous solubility. To circumvent this drawback, a series of Brij-grafted-chitosan copolymers (BCs) with various grafting degree of Brij-S20 were first developed and reported. The results indicated that the water solubility of BCs (from 9.13 to 9.54 mg/mL) were much higher than that of CS (0.32 mg/mL), due to the broken intra- and/or inter-molecular hydrogen bonds and the decreased initial crystallinity in BCs. The amphiphilic structure of BCs presented lower critical micelle concentration (0.116-0.376 mg/mL) thus facilitating its self-aggregation into micelles for drug encapsulation. Moreover, BCs markedly enhanced the intracellular uptake of rhodamine-123 in MDCK-MDR1 cells. This inhibition on Pgp-mediated efflux was also confirmed by confocal microscopy. In conclusion, BCs could be further developed as polymeric nano-carriers for those drugs with Pgp-mediated efflux.