Property modelling of lysozyme-crosslinker-alginate complexes using latent variable methods.

ABSTRACT

Statistical methods were used to provide insight into a polymer complex system composed of lysozyme and alginate to quantify the effects of such parameters as pH, and ionic composition of the mixing solution on the properties of the complexes including composition, particle diameter, and zeta potential. Various crosslinkers (calcium, barium, iron[III], and bovine serum albumin), were used with lysozyme for complex formation to investigate the effect of crosslinker charge density on protein release kinetics, modelled using ktn . Multivariate statistical analysis showed that the kinetic parameters associated with the release were, not surprisingly highly dependent on the ionic strength of the release media, with higher ionic strength leading to faster release. The release parameter k was also shown to depend on the protein properties (size, ionic strength) while n was slightly, but not statistically dependent on the charge density of the crosslinker demonstrating that the nature of the crosslinker had minimal impact on drug release. The multivariate statistical has the potential to be used for optimization of the complexes and prediction of physical properties and degradation rates.