title: Characterization and degradation behavior of agar-carbomer based hydrogels for drug delivery applications: solute effect.
abstract: In this study hydrogels synthesized from agarose and carbomer 974P macromers were selected for their potential application in spinal cord injury (SCI) repair strategies following their ability to carry cells and drugs. Indeed, in drug delivery applications, one of the most important issues to be addressed concerns hydrogel ability to provide a finely controlled delivery of loaded drugs, together with a coherent degradation kinetic. Nevertheless, solute effects on drug delivery system are often neglected in the large body of literature, focusing only on the characterization of unloaded matrices. For this reason, in this work, hydrogels were loaded with a chromophoric salt able to mimic, in terms of steric hindrance, many steroids commonly used in SCI repair, and its effects were investigated both from a structural and a rheological point of view, considering the pH-sensitivity of the material. Additionally, degradation chemistry was assessed by means of infrared bond response (FT-IR) and mass loss.
authors: Dipartimento di Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica "Giulio Natta", Politecnico di Milano, Via Mancinelli 7, 20131 Milano, Italy; E-Mails: filippo.rossi@mail.polimi.it (F.R.); marco.santoro@chem.polimi.it (M.S.); tommaso.casalini@mail.polimi.it (T.C.); maurizio.masi@polimi.it (M.M.).
authors: Filippo
authors: F
authors: Rossi
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Santoro
authors: Tommaso
authors: T
authors: Casalini
authors: Pietro
authors: P
authors: Veglianese
authors: Maurizio
authors: M
authors: Masi
authors: Giuseppe
authors: G
authors: Perale
mesh_terms: D000180:Acrylic Resins / Q000737:chemistry*; D000362:Agar / Q000737:chemistry*; D004337:Drug Carriers / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D020100:Hydrogels / Q000138:chemical synthesis / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D007700:Kinetics; D012212:Rheology; D012996:Solutions / Q000737:chemistry*; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; D013256:Steroids / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000180:Acrylic Resins; D004337:Drug Carriers; D020100:Hydrogels; D012996:Solutions; D013256:Steroids; C479038:carbomer; D000362:Agar