Characteration of Protein Loaded Chitosan Nanoparticles at Different pH Values

In this paper, the properties of chitosan (CS) nanoparticles (CS NPs) and Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) loaded chitosan nanoparticles (BSA-loaded CS NPs) prepared with sodium tripolyphosphate (TPP) at different pH values were discussed. In addition, BSA encapsulation efficiency, zeta potentials and size of CS NPs and BSA-loaded CS NPs were characterized. The results indicated that sizes of CS NPs presented “V” change along with increase of pH values, while the size of BSA-loaded CS NPs showed “U” shape change. BSA encapsulation efficiency reached the biggest value when the pH value was 5.5. Zeta potentials of CS NPs and BSA-loaded CS NPs kept going down when the pH values were increasing, and positive potential of CS-loaded BSA CS NPs became higher than that of CS NPS when the pH value was more than 5.5. BSA-loaded CS NPs prepared at pH 5.5 exhibited regular and close to spherical in shape under transmission electron microscopy (TEM) sight.