Formulation optimization and <Emphasis Type="Italic">in vivo</Emphasis> evaluation of mucoadhesive xyloglucan microspheres

Mucoadhesive microspheres of the novel polymer, xyloglucan, have been formulated and their performance characteristics have been systematically evaluated in vitro and in vivo. The mucoadhesive microspheres were obtained by incorporating glipizide as model drug in xyloglucan as a mucoadhesive polymer and sodium alginate as a gel-forming polymer by the orifice-ionic gelation method. A3² factorial design was employed to study the effect of independent variables, xyloglucan concentration (X ₁ ) and calcium chloride (CaCl₂) concentration (X ₂ ), on the dependent variables including drug entrapment efficiency, release time (t ₈₀), and percentage mucoadhesion in 1h. The best batch exhibited high drug entrapment efficiency (92.98%) and percentage mucoadhesion (78% after 1h). The drug release was also controlled for more than 8 hours. In vivo testing of the mucoadhesive microspheres revealed significant hypoglycemic effect of glipizide.