Controlled release studies of antimalarial 1, 3, 5-trisubstituted-2-pyrazolines from biocompatible chitosan–heparin Layer-by-Layer (LbL) self assembled thin films

Herein we report the in-vitro controlled release properties of 1, 3, 5-trisubstituted-2-pyrazolines through Layer-by-Layer (LbL) self assembled thin films fabricated from chitosan and heparin sodium salt as biocompatible polyelectrolytes. This study was carried out as a preliminary step towards the applicability of LbL technique in prophylactic drug delivery of antimalarial drugs. The growth of LbL self assembly was monitored by UV–Visible spectrophotometry and Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM). The loading as well as in-vitro release studies (in phosphate buffer saline at pH 7.4) were carried out using UV–Visible spectroscopy. Three compounds having good antimalarial activity were tested and the release rate was found inversely proportional to the hydrophobicity of the drug. Pzln-4 has shown best release among all the three compounds (up to 780 min) followed by Pzln-5 and Pzln-8. The release trend was that of a fast release up to first 2 h followed by a steady release. Kinetic fitting of the data confirmed the process of drug release followed a pseudo second order kinetics (R2 ≥ 0.99). A large value of rate constant (k) revealed a faster release. Pzln-4 has shown smallest value of k corresponding to slowest release among all the three compounds.