(720e) Fabrication of Steroid-Based Biodegradable Microparticles for Drug Delivery Applications

Steroid-core molecules, specifically bile salts and corticosteroids, have been used to treat bile synthesis disorders, and inflammatory conditions as well as specifically lyse adipose tissue. The ability to fabricate a microparticle formulation of otherwise water-soluble steroids is of great interest to prolong the therapeutic effect of these drugs. Accordingly, three modified emulsion solvent evaporation processes were developed to fabricate steroid microparticles. A metal or acid, such as gold nanoparticles, gold ions, or salicylic acid, facilitates steroid microparticle formation in these processes. This metal or acid is subsequently incorporated into the particle matrix. Particles fabricated using these methods exhibit consistent shape, size, and crystallinity. Furthermore, these steroid microparticles are composed of bioactive drug molecules that are released upon degradation. Deoxycholate microparticles, fabricated with the gold nanoparticle, gold ion, and salicylic acid methods (Fig. 1A), exhibited similar concentration-dependent lysis of adipocytes in vitro (Fig. 1B). Additionally, the presence of albumin throttled particle-induced lysis, indicating that the mechanism of lysis was retained. Further in vivo testing of deoxycholate microparticles unveiled near-identical performance in significantly reducing adipose tissue mass (Fig. 1C). This work establishes a versatile platform for producing microparticles composed of different steroid drugs and lays the foundation for new steroid drug delivery systems.