Carbon dots-incorporated pH-responsive agarose-PVA hydrogel nanocomposites for the controlled release of norfloxacin drug

摘要

Several hydrogels-based delivery systems are designed and studied in order to meet the requirements in biomedical fields. Herein, the possibility of carbon dots (CDs)-incorporated hydrogel nanocomposites was investigated for the drug release study. Highly fluorescent CDs synthesized from groundnuts using hydrothermal method were characterized with TEM, FTIR, UV-visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. pH-responsive biodegradable hydrogel nanocomposites were synthesized using agarose polymer and agarose-poly(vinyl alcohol) copolymer with the successful integration of CDs. CDs improved the swelling as well as the biodegradation properties of the prepared hydrogel nanocomposites. Structural changes of prepared hydrogel nanocomposites have been characterized using FTIR, SEM and TGA analysis. Hydrogel nanocomposites showed highly porous surface as shown by SEM analysis. In this study, norfloxacin (NFX) was used as a model drug to investigate the in vitro release behavior at two different pH (pH 1.2 and pH 7.4). NFX release from hydrogel nanocomposites followed zero-order kinetics, and Korsemeyer-Peppas model confirmed the release of NFX through erosion of hydrogel nanocomposites. Degradation of hydrogel nanocomposites films was checked using hen egg lysozyme enzyme which confirmed the biodegradable nature of prepared hydrogel nanocomposites films. MTT assay confirmed the nontoxic nature of hydrogel nanocomposites films when treated with blood cells (PBMC).