Encapsulation of Retinoic Acid and Amitriptyline Hydrochloride By Pluronic F127 Using Sonication and Solvation Dry Film Method

In the recent decade, strokes have left many individuals with damaged nervous systems, and left especially elderly with limited motor function, as strokes often result in the loss of GABAergic neurons, which are a crucial part of the brain’s communication pathways. A possible method of recovery would be to use neural stem cells and supply them with small molecules to direct neural stem cell (NSCs) differentiation. However, two effective molecules, retinoic acid (RA) and amitriptyline hydrochloride (AH) are hydrophobic, making drug delivery difficult. Nanocarrier encapsulation has been an effective strategy to deliver hydrophobic drugs, and thus here F-127 micelles have been chosen as the delivery system. This was done by using sonication to ensure the drugs are encapsulated, as well as dry film solvent methods ideally to evenly distribute the drugs among the nanocarrier. DLS measurements showed inconsistent sizes of micelles across both methods, by dry-film solvation appear more consistent in making small micelles (28-32nm diameter), along with some larger micelles (200-400nm diameter). TEM pictures confirmed the construction of these micelles, but quantitative data is still needed to confirm the drugs were successfully encapsulated.