In vitro investigation of swelling triggered release of 5-fluorouracil from gelatin coated gold nanoparticles

In the present study gelatin coated-gold nanoparticles were synthesized and release study of the drug "5-fluorouracil" (5-FU) was carried out in a controlled manner. Gelatin nanoparticles were prepared by single water in oil (W/O) emulsion crosslinking technique and gold (Au) nanoparticles by Turkvitch method. For preparing gelatin coated-Au nanoparticles, in situ method was adopted. The release kinetics of entrapped drug was investigated as a function of various experimental factors such as chemical composition of prepared nanoparticles, pH, temperature and simulated biological fluids as the release media. The 5-FU drug loaded nanoparticles were characterized by FTIR, SEM, TEM, XRD and in vitro cytotoxicity techniques. The drug release process was analyzed kinetically using Fickian power law, zero order, first order and Korsmeyer-Peppas models, respectively, and a correlation was established between the quantity of the released drug and swelling of the nanoparticles.