| RESEARCH |
research on starch using an immobilized lipase known as Novozym 435 to esterify starch nanoparticles. The enzyme is a lipase from Candida antarctica immobilized on an acrylic macroporous resin. Starch, Chakraborty points out, is an abundant, inexpensive, naturally occurring polysaccharide that is biocompatible, biodegradable, and nontoxic. Modified forms of starch are potentially useful as drug carriers. Chakraborty's research has focused on regioselective acylation at the C-6 position of the starch's glycopyranose repeat units. To make the nanoparticles accessible for reaction, she incorporated them into reverse micelles stabilized by a commercially available compound known as Aerosol-OT (AOT, bis[2-ethylhexyl]sodium sulfosuccinate). The nanodimensions of AOT-coated starch particles and their solubility in nonpolar media, such as toluene, allow their diffusion through the pores of the macroporous Novozym 435 resin. "The esterification occurs throughout the starch nanoparticles instead of being limited to the surface of large particles or films as was the case in previous attempts to acylate starch using enzymes," Chakraborty explains. "We used vinyl stearate, -caprolactone, and maleic anhydride as the acyl donors for the esterification reactions. "We have shown that enzyme catalysis can be used to prepare a new family of structurally and dimensionally well-defined nanoparticles from an abundant, biocompatible, and natural building material," she says. |
| AUTHOR | Gross, graduate student Soma Chakraborty, and coworkers at Polytechnic University |
| LITERATURE REF. | This data is not available for free |
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