Controlled Release 7-methoxytacrine-polycaprolactone Nanocapsules Drug-delivery System for Alzheimer's Disease Treatment: Synthesis and Physico-chemical Characterization

Abstract Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent cause of dementia in aging people. 7-Methoxytacrine (7-MEOTA) is one of the approved drugs for the treatment of this disease. In the current study, a 7-MEOTA delivery system has been prepared based on the polycaprolactone nanocapsules (7-MEOTA@PCL) and its physico-chemical properties were investigated as well. The drug amount loaded in nanocapsules has been estimated 65%. The average particle size of the 7-MEOTA@PCL nanocapsules was around 237 nm with polydispersity index of 0.31 and negative surface charge (-21.2 mV). The prepared nanoparticles are stable upon 40 days storage at 25 °C, without any decomposition. The morphological analysis of the 7-MEOTA@PCL nanoparticles indicated that the nanoparticles are spherical, and free of any aggregation. In vitro release experiments revealed controlled release of the 7-MEOTA from the polycaprolactone nanocapsules. Application of the Korsmeyer-Peppas model to the release kinetics data showed that the release of the drug was by diffusion Fick’s law.