Porous Mg-stabilized amorphous calcium carbonate as carrier for hydrophobic drugs

In this work, we demonstrate that porous MgACC microspheres could be prepared in liposome solution containing zwitterionic and anionic lipids. We find that the lipid molecules incorporated into MgACC could be as high as 10 mass%. Because hydrophobic drugs are lipophilic, the porous MgACC has been exploited as the carriers of hydrophobic drugs. Using lecithin as the source of lipids and N-(rhodamine-6G)lactam-ethylenediamine (R6GNCCN) as the model of hydrophobic drugs, the optimal loading capacity was found to be ca. 1.4 mass%. The release of R6GNCCN to a phosphate buffer at pH 7.4 was over 90% within 5 hr. The drug release profile could be attenuated by encapsulating the MgACC core by a CaP shell.