Drug loading of polymer micelles can have a profound effect on their particle size and morphology as well as their physicochemical properties. In turn, this influences performance in biological environments. For oral delivery of drugs, the intestinal environment is key, and consequently, a thorough structural understanding of what happens at this material-biology interface is required to understand in vivo performance and tailor improved delivery vehicles. In this study, we address this interface in vitro through a detailed structural characterization of the colloidal assemblies of polymeric micelles based on poly(2-oxazolines) with three different guest loadings with the natural product curcumin (17-52 wt %) in fed-state simulated intestinal fluids (FeSSIF). For this, we employ NMR spectroscopy, in particular, 1H NMR, 1H-1H-NOESY, and 1H DOSY experiments complemented by quantum chemical calculations and cryo-TEM measurements. Through this mixture of methods, we identified curcumin-taurocholate interactions as central interaction patterns alongside interactions with the polymer and lipids. Furthermore, curcumin molecules can be exchanged between polymer micelles and bile colloids, an important prerequisite for their uptake. Finally, increased loading of the polymer micelles with curcumin resulted in a larger number of vesicles as taurocholate─through coordination with Cur─is less available to form nanoparticles with the lipids. The loading-dependent behavior found in this study deviates from previous work on a different drug substance highlighting the need for further studies including different drug molecules and polymer types to improve the understanding of events on the molecular level.
Keywords: FeSSIF; NMR spectroscopy; biorelevant; cryo-TEM; drug-loaded polymer micelle.