A Short Term Quality Control Tool for Biodegradable Microspheres

Accelerated in vitro release testing methodology has been developed as an indicator of product performance to be used as a discriminatory quality control (QC) technique for the release of clinical and commercial batches of biodegradable microspheres. While product performance of biodegradable microspheres can be verified by in vivo and/or in vitro experiments, such evaluation can be particularly challenging because of slow polymer degradation, resulting in extended study times, labor, and expense. Three batches of Leuprolide poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microspheres having varying morphology (process variants having different particle size and specific surface area) were manufactured by the solvent extraction/evaporation technique. Tests involving in vitro release, polymer degradation and hydration of the microspheres were performed on the three batches at 55°C. In vitro peptide release at 55°C was analyzed using a previously derived modification of the Weibull function termed the modified Weibull equation (MWE). Experimental observations and data analysis confirm excellent reproducibility studies within and between batches of the microsphere formulations demonstrating the predictability of the accelerated experiments at 55°C. The accelerated test method was also successfully able to distinguish the in vitro product performance between the three batches having varying morphology (process variants), indicating that it is a suitable QC tool to discriminate product or process variants in clinical or commercial batches of microspheres. Additionally, data analysis utilized the MWE to further quantify the differences obtained from the accelerated in vitro product performance test between process variants, thereby enhancing the discriminatory power of the accelerated methodology at 55°C.     

Oxidative decarboxylation of retinoic acid in microsomes of rat liver and kidney

Liver and kidney microsomes have been found to catalyze a rapid decarboxylation of retinoic acid in vitro. The reaction requires NADPH and Fe(2+), and is further stimulated by the presence of pyrophosphate. Thiamine pyrophosphate contained sufficient iron as an impurity to provide strong enhancement of the reaction in the absence of added iron. The decarboxylation could also be shown to occur nonenzymatically in the presence of ascorbate, Fe(2+), and boiled microsomes, but there was little autoxidation resulting in decarboxylation. The reaction was strongly inhibited by chelating agents, N,N'-diphenyl-p-phenylene diamine, phenazine methosulfate, and ferricyanide, and resembled lipid peroxidation in both its cofactor requirements and response to inhibitors. The product of the reaction appeared to lack only the C-15 of the original retinoic acid molecule. It was not retained by diethylaminoethyl cellulose, was more polar than retinoic acid upon silicic acid chromatography, had a lower UV absorption maximum (295 m micro ) than the starting product, and seemed to have an aldehyde group at C-14. The physiological significance of the decarboxylation remains to be assessed, but its rapidity makes it important to in vitro work on retinoic acid.