MAGNETIC POLYSACCHARIDE NANOSPHERES WITH POTENTIAL FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS: PREPARATION VIA A REVERSE MINIEMULSION METHOD

Magnetic polymeric supports such as micro- and nanospheres have attracted increasing interest in the last few years due to their potential for applications in biology and medicine, such as cell isolation, protein immobilization, targeting drug delivery and clinical diagnosis [1]. For use in biomedical applications, magnetic polymer nanospheres need to fulfill some requirements: biocompatibility, narrow size distribution and high density of reactive surface groups for the coupling of active biomolecules. In addition, nanospheres should have high and uniformly dispersed magnetic content with superparamagnetic behavior. In our previous work [2] κ-carrageenan, a non-toxic sulphated polysaccharide has been successfully employed as a colloidal stabilizer in the in-situ synthesis of superparamagnetic magnetite nanoparticles, preventing their spontaneous agglomeration and conferring biocompatibility to the resulting composite. Moreover, the resulting ferrofluid, that contained magnetite nanoparticles prepared by co-precipitation within the κ-carrageenan under alkaline conditions, could undergo gelation under cooling conditions due to the gelling properties of this biopolymer. In this work, taking advantage of the ability of the ferrofluid to form gels, composite nanospheres consisting of magnetite nanoparticles embedded in a κ-carrageenan matrix hav