Research on Antibacterial Screening and Drug Delivery using Chitosan-Stearic Acid Derivative.

In our present investigation we have used chitosan-stearic acid derivative for both antibacterial screening and drug delivery applications. Stearic acid being the fatty acid with aliphatic chain homologue -CH₂ - (n=16) enhanced the chemical properties of chitosan which becomes beneficial for antibacterial activity and drug delivery applications. Ciprofloxacin antibiotic was taken as a model drug for the release study. Stearic acid readily improved the permeability of incorporated ciprofloxacin drug. The prepared chitosan-stearic derivative was characterized using FTIR, XRD and DSC techniques while drug release screening was performed using UV spectrophotometer. The prepared chitosan-stearic acid derivative showed good antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli bacterial strains. The drug release screening results indicated a brust release at first hour; nearly 17% in case of non crosslinked film whereas neary 19% release in stearic acid crosslinked conjugate. At later stage, the drug release becomes steady and slow in both the cases. Nearly 88% of the total drug loaded released within 48 h and later on it do not show more release probably due to interaction with chitosan and stearic acid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]