Chitosan Microparticles for Drug Delivery against Dental Caries

Biofilm is developed by the bacteria with the production of extra polysaccharides components to become more resistant to the antibiotics. Dental caries is the breakdown of the tooth by the production of biofilm made by the bacteria. Particulate drug delivery systems have become important in experimental pharmaceutics and clinical medicine to transfer drug. Chitosan being highly hemocompatible, good swelling capacity and biopolymer is the efficient material that can be used as a material in drug delivery as it can cross link with the drug to be transformed. In the present work chitosan microparticles are prepared via sol-gel process to encapsulate rutin trihydrate and its action against biofilm is seen. The morphology of the particles prepared was analyzed using SEM resulting in nearly monodispersed spherical particles. The FTIR analysis of the particles has been done. In the present work drug is post loaded into chitosan microparticles though impregnation method. The loading efficiency calculated was 32%. The in vitro drug release done in PBS buffer shows slow and sustained release of the drug from microparticles, the drug release profile showed that most of the drug was released within 7 hrs and then it starts decreasing after that. The hemocompatibility test was performed for chitosan microparticles and microparticles show it to be hemocomptible. The chitosan microparticles showed good swelling capacity. The synthesized microparticles are tested as a tooth filling material. The results showed that chitosan microparticles could be used as effective drug delivery carrier for drug against biofilm.