Preparation and sustained release bacteriostatic performance of pH-responsive complex hydrogel bacteriostatic microspheres for oral drug delivery

AbstractpH-responsive hydrogel antibacterial microspheres were prepared by complex coacervation method and used as drug carriers to load the antibiotic substitute potassium diformate (KDF). The results showed that the three-dimensional network structure of the composite hydrogel was formed among the polysaccharide components, and Zeolite A loaded with KDF was uniformly dispersed in it. The results of drug release behavior and kinetics in vitro showed that the drug release rate was higher and the release mechanism followed the Ritger-Peppas model, which indicated that the antibacterial microspheres had a good pH response. In vitro, the carrier showed broad-spectrum antibacterial activity, good biocompatibility, and degradability.Sodium carboxymethylcellulose and pectin synergistic by hydrogen bonding, potassium dicarboxylate-loaded Zeolite A is filled in a three-dimensional hydrogel network, and chitosan quaternary ammonium salts coat the outer layer.Keywords: pH stimulus responsepotassium diformateslow release bacteriostasisZeolite A Authors' contributionsWenqin Xu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Visualization, Software, Writing–original draft, Writing—review and editing. Xing Li: Data Curation, Writing—review and editing. Xianmei Wu: Formal analysis, Writing—review and editing. Guanghua Pan: Software, Writing—review and editing. Nanchun Chen: Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Xiuli Wang: Validation, Writing—review and editing. Qinglin Xie: Visualization, Writing—review and editing.Disclosure statementThe authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51564008, 51978189).