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Insight into glycyrrhetinic acid: The role of the hydroxyl group on liver targeting

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpharm.2010.08.032Get rights and content

Abstract

Two kinds of glycyrrhetinic acid-modified chitosan/poly(ethylene glycol) nanoparticles (CTS/PEG-GA NPs) were prepared by an ionic gelation process in which the liver targeting ligand glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) was introduced into the nanoparticles at the C30-carboxyl group (CTS/PEG-GA(c) NPs) or the C3-hydroxyl group (CTS/PEG-GA(h) NPs). Their characteristics, especially their ability to target the liver, were compared. The results showed that both the CTS/PEG-GA(c) NPs and the CTS/PEG-GA(h) NPs are remarkably targeted to the liver. The accumulation in the liver is 51.3% and 56.5% of the injected dose for the CTS/PEG-GA(c)4.60% NPs (the subscript number denotes the GA content as weight percent in nanoparticles) and the CTS/PEG-GA(h)4.57% NPs at 3 h after injection, respectively. This is nearly 2.6–2.8 times higher than that obtained with the CTS/PEG NPs. According to our results, there is no significant difference between the CTS/PEG-GA(c) NPs and the CTS/PEG-GA(h) NPs in their ability to target the liver, when they were formed under identical conditions. This indicated that the C3-hydroxyl group in GA has little influence on the targeting ability.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Prof. Jian Tan of the Department of Nuclear Medicine, General Hospital, Tianjin Medical University for his help in the animal assays and discussion. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 50873048, 51073080).

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