This study reports on the physicochemical characterisation and in vitro investigations of macro-porous silica-lipid hybrid (SLH) microcapsules when formulated using various lipids: long-chain triglycerides (LCT), medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), medium-chain mono-, diglycerides (MCMDG); and emulsifiers: anionic lecithin and cationic oleylamine. For the lipophilic compound coumarin 102 (logP=4.09), a complete and immediate in vitro release was attained for the SLH microcapsules under simulated intestinal sink conditions. The in vitro digestion study of various types of SLH microcapsules demonstrates: (i) reduced variability and enhanced lipid digestibility for the MCMDG-based microcapsules (i.e. 90-100% lipolysis) in comparison with an equivalent lipid solution and emulsion (50-90% lipolysis); and (ii) more controllable digestion kinetics for the LCT-based microcapsules which produce a lipolysis rate higher than that of a lipid solution but lower than that of a lipid emulsion. The drug phase partition results show approximately 5- to 17-fold increase in the drug solubilisation degree resulting from the digestion of MCT and MCMDG-based microcapsules (116 μg/mL), and LCT-based microcapsules (416 μg/mL) in comparison with the blank micellar medium (24 μg/mL). In conclusion, the SLH microcapsules could be tailored to manipulate the digestion patterns of both medium- and long-chain lipids in order to maximise the drug solubilisation capacity.
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