Particulate matrices of ionotropically gelled alginate- and plant-derived starches for sustained drug release

Abstract Plant-derived starches are vegetable polysaccharides occurring in cereals, seeds, corms, tubers, rhizomes, and root vegetables of various plants. These are recognized as biopolymers with diverse biomedical applications due to availability from nature, cost-effectiveness, biodegradability, and biocompatibility. During past few decades, a huge number of starches from different plant parts are being explored and expansively exploited as versatile pharmaceutical excipients like suspending agents, emulsifiers, diluents, disintegrating agents, binding agents, film-forming agents, matrix-forming agents, release retardants, and mucoadhesive excipients, in a variety of pharmaceutical dosage forms. Recent years, plant-derived starches have been used as polymeric blendings with sodium alginate for designing ionotropically gelled particulates (i.e., beads, microparticles) for the use in sustained drug releasing applications. The incorporation of these plant-derived starches within ionotropically gelled alginate matrix in the development of various alginate–plant-derived starches-based particulates minimize some potential limitations of ionotropically gelled alginate particles as drug carriers like lower drug entrapment, poor mechanical properties, and premature drug release behavior within short duration. The present chapter provides a discussion on various alginate–plant-derived starches-based microparticles and beads as sustained delivery carrier matrices prepared via the ionotropic-gelation technique. These ionotropically gelled beads and microparticles made of alginate–plant-derived starches were observed for the encapsulations of various drug candidates to facilitate sustained release of encapsulated drugs over a prolonged duration.