Chitosan-tartrate microparticles for sustained release of vancomycin hydrochloride.

Chitosan is a natural cationic biopolymer produced fron N-deacetylation of chitin. Chitosan’s unique characteristics make it potentially useful in a variety of applications suche as a drug carrier, wound healing, implantation and gene therapy because of the following advantages: chitosan is inexpensive, non-toxic, biodegradable and biocompatible. Vancomycin hydrochloride was used as a model peptide drug: following oral administration, peptide drugs suffer from poor intestinal absorption due to the susceptibility to the proteolytic enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract and poor membrane permeability. The absorption of peptide drugs could be enhanced in the colon because of the lower proteilytic activity and longer residence time. In this study, chitosan tartrate microparticles were prepared using spray-drying technique. Scanning Electron Microscopy and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy were carried out to understand respectively the morphology and the structural interations between chitosan and tartaric acid. The release of vancomycin was also evaluated.