Sample Solution

value was elevated to 5.8, Eudragit L100-55 dissolved and water penetrated to the core of the particles. The particle size become larger as chitosan swelling and the higher porosity of chitosan caused rapid insulin release.

Depending on their characters, pH sensitive nanoparticles can be mainly divided into two types. One induces drug release at higher pH because of ionizable functional groups on the polymer backbone or side chain, for example, nanoparticles prepared using poly (methacrylic acid) [98], hydroxypropyl methylcellulose phthalate[99] and poly (acrylic acid) grafted poly(vinylidenefluoride)[100]. This kind of nanoparticles is typically used for oral drug delivery [97,101-109], where a physiological pH shifts along GIT facilitates the swelling or dissolution of the carriers. The other kinds of pH-sensitive nanoparticles have a reversed swelling or dissolution behavior of the former. It undergoes swelling in acidic environment and can be used to target tumors, lysosomes and endosomes, where pH is comparatively low [110].

Oral administration of poorly water-soluble drugs incorporated in pH-sensitive particles has been found to be very efficient through increasing drug bioavailability and achieving fast absorption [36,109, 111]. It has been considered that the good bioavailability of pH-controlled nanoparticulate drug systems depends on some properties, including the high specific surface area of the system, drug in an amorphous form or molecularly dispersed in the polymer matrix, and the release of drug close to the absorption site [36, 103, 111].
The dissolution of the particles should not be too fast, however, as this might cause drug precipitation [109] or crystallization [112], but should not be too slow which lead to the rapid elimination of the particles before absorption, either[109].

The advantages of pH-sensitive nanoparticles over other nanoparticles include: (a) the