Corn storage protein zein: Biopolymer for drug delivery systems

Introduction Zein is a storage protein from corn, which belongs to the group of prolamins. With its biopolymeric properties, robustness and versatility, this protein offers great potential for pharmaceutical applications and can be used for developing different types of drug delivery systems. Due to its non-polar character, it is highly soluble in ethanol and can be easily extracted through an ethanolic reflux extraction [1].

Aim Development of innovative drug delivery systems for wound-patches with plant-based biopolymers.

Method For zein wound-patches easy cast methods and complex electrospinning technology was used. As active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) nicotinamid or cannabigeriol (CBG) was used. Nicotinamid is a common model API and cannabigeriol was used due to its antimicrobial properties. For wound-patch formulations zein and the API was dissolved in ethanol with or without plasticizers. The electrospun fibers were analyzed with scanning electron microscopy and the release of the API out of the wound patches was measured.

Results The produced nicotinamid containing nanofibers with diameters between 129.8–769.9 nm provide a large surface. Furthermore, it was possible to produce flexible and stable casted biopolymer films which contain the API CBG. The nicotinamid was released within 5 minutes out of zein nanofibers whereas cannabigeriol was released within 5 hours out of the casted wound patches ([Fig. 1]).

Fig. 1 Release of Cannabigeriol out of casted zein wound patches.

Discussion The large specific surface of nanofibers or the easy to perform method of producing API containing biopolymer films Zein has a great potential for developing drug delivery systems.

Acknowledgements We thank Samuel Peter, Kevin Mattli, Sandro Wegmann and Sara Mousavi for the support with the analytics.

Publication History

Article published online:
13 June 2022

• References

• 1 Shukla R. et al. Industrial Crops and Products 2001; 13: 171-192