Effect of Acidic and Basic Environment to the Degradation Behavior of PLGA Nanocapsules for Biomedical Application

Poly (D, L lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) is very famous with its biodegradability property. In the formed of nanocapsules (NPs), it is applied as contrast agent or for drug encapsulation. To pursuit better function of PLGA NPs, a study about degradation behaviour is necessary because it is related to NPs drug release pattern. To conduct this research, PLGA NPs was prepared by emulsification solvent-evaporation method and incubated in phosphate, acetate, and carbonate buffer to observe the effect of different pH into degradation rate of PLGA NPs. The acidic environment tends to have fast destructuration with less lactate monomer produced indicating less breaking of ester bonds. While in the basic condition, the degradation is done slowly with high production of lactate. This phenomena is related to the solubility of oligomers. So, it is clear that different pH affects the degradation mechanism of PLGA NPs and it can be applied to encapsulate drug for gastric or small intestinal cancer which have acidic and basic environment respectively.