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A modified microfluidic chip for fabrication of paclitaxel-loaded poly(l-lactic acid) microspheres

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Abstract

In this article, we present a simple PDMS surface modification method based on poly(vinyl alcohol)/glycerol (PVA/Gly) solution immersion, self-assembled absorption, and heat treatment. The results of contact angle and ATR-FTIR demonstrate the superhydrophilic surface in modified PDMS. It can allow for the stable production of monodisperse droplet in a highly reproducible manner. In addition, we demonstrate the fabrication of monodisperse paclitaxel (PTX) loaded poly(l-lactic acid) (PLLA) microspheres on this kind of modification chip with solvent evaporation. The PLLA microspheres can be adjusted to a range of different sizes depending on the system flow rate. Determination of microsphere size is carried out by optical microscopy and image analysis to reveal less than 4% variation in microsphere size. Compared with the results of published papers, the presented data demonstrate that PTX-loaded PLLA microspheres show good physical properties (spherical and discrete), high-drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, a small initial burst, and sustained-release behavior due to outstanding monodispersity. With the characteristic to prepare high-quality, monodisperse, biodegradable microspheres, the versatile and simple microfluidic method facilitates the development of more reliable and reproducible drug delivery systems, which have great potential to benefit pharmaceutical and biological applications.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by funding from National Basic Research Program (973 Program) of China (No. 2007CB714505), National Major Special Project of Science and Technology (No. 2009ZX09311-01) and Ministry of Education of China (No. 20080031012). The authors would like to thank Professor Zhang Xi (Tsinghua University) for measuring contact angle, ATR-FTIR and AFM images.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry & Chemical Biology (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Tianxi He, Qionglin Liang, Yiming Wang & Guoan Luo

  2. Logistic Engineering of University, Chongqing, 400016, People’s Republic of China

    Tianxi He

  3. School of Pharmacy, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, People’s Republic of China

    Kai Zhang, Xuan Mu & Tingting Luo

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  1. Tianxi He
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  2. Qionglin Liang
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Correspondence to Qionglin Liang or Guoan Luo.

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He, T., Liang, Q., Zhang, K. et al. A modified microfluidic chip for fabrication of paclitaxel-loaded poly(l-lactic acid) microspheres. Microfluid Nanofluid 10, 1289–1298 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-010-0760-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10404-010-0760-7

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