Publication

Abstract : Anisotropy in biological lipid membranes can be observed in terms of phase separation of lipids into co-existing laterally condensed and fluid regions and this composition depended process regulates membrane mechanical properties. The aim of this work is to explore the lipid membranes with anisotropic properties to control drug delivery from reservoir devices. We have earlier demonstrated that, using phosphatidylethanolamine the size of the cholesterol rich domains in model mixed lipid membranes can be reduced to the size of order of trans-membrane proteins. In this work, we have checked whether, these model membranes have the capacity to control the drug release in a concentration independent manner from reservoir devices. Our results show that, anisotropic lipid coatings definitely suppress the burst release to less than 10% and produce concentration independent release profile to the extent of erodible systems and produce prolonged controlled delivery for upto 60 days. However, change in size of the domains to one order lower magnitude does not significantly alter the release profile at earlier time points.