Characterization of modified agave fructans used as drug carriers to the colon by spectroscopy techniques

摘要

Carbohydrate polymers based on fructose from Agave tequilana Weber var. azul, known as fructans, havea great potential as carriers of drugs due to their chemical structure, which makes them non degradable inthe upper digestive tract, but enzymatically degradable in the colon. However, esterification is necessary toobtain hydrophobic compounds capable to preserve drugs at stomach conditions. We esterified fructans withacetyl, lauroyl and palmitoyl moieties for encapsulating ibuprofen as a model drug. Esterification of fructan wasconfirmed using attenuated total reectance infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), while the degree of substitution(DS) was quantified by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (~1H-NMR).