Preparation of gelatin beads treated with glucose and glycerol

Abstract Gelatin is employed in pharmaceutical applications because of its biodegradability, biocompatibility and low toxicity. However, it may be necessary to promote gelatin crosslinking in order to develop drug release systems and extend release times. SEC analyses are used here for the first time to monitor the evolution of molar mass distributions of gelatins during treatment with glycerol and glucose in dispersed media. Unambiguous experimental evidence of gelatin crosslinking in presence of sugars and glycerol has yet to be presented. SEC results indicate that average molar masses decrease during gelatin treatment, while FT-IR analyses indicate that gelatins are subject to structural modifications during processing, which can explain the decrease of gelatin solubility after treatment. The results presented here indicate the importance of using SEC techniques to monitor gelatin crosslinking, as they seemingly contradict previously published results that make use of indirect measures for this purpose.

摘要 明胶因具备生物降解性、生物相容性与低毒性，被广泛应用于医药领域。然而，为开发药物递送系统并延长释药时长，往往需要对明胶进行交联改性。本研究首次采用尺寸排阻色谱(Size Exclusion Chromatography，SEC)技术，监测明胶在分散介质中经甘油与葡萄糖处理过程中的摩尔质量分布演变情况。目前学界尚未能提供糖类与甘油共存时明胶发生交联的明确实验证据。尺寸排阻色谱结果显示，明胶经处理后其平均摩尔质量有所降低；而傅里叶变换红外光谱(Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy，FT-IR)分析则表明，明胶在处理过程中发生了结构改性，这可解释处理后明胶溶解度下降的现象。本研究结果凸显了采用尺寸排阻色谱技术监测明胶交联过程的重要性，因为本研究的实验结果与此前采用间接方法开展相关研究所得到的结论看似相互矛盾。