In this work, we use antisolvent precipitation to prepare zein/carboxymethylated short-chain amylose (CSA) complex nanoparticles for insulin encapsulation, showing that insulin-loaded zein/CSA complex nanoparticles are homogeneous, generally exhibiting sizes of <200 nm with a narrow distribution (polydispersity index < 0.100), spherical shape, and strong negative charge (−40 mV). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis reveals that the formation of the above nanoparticles is mainly driven by hydrophobic, hydrogen-bonding, and electrostatic interactions between CSA, insulin, and zein. In comparison to zein nanoparticles, zein/CSA complex nanoparticles feature much higher insulin encapsulation efficiency (45.8 versus 90.5%, respectively) and are essentially nontoxic to Caco-2 cells. Thus, this work provides new insights into the design of drug delivery systems and is expected to inspire their further development.

中文翻译：

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胰岛素负载玉米醇溶蛋白/羧甲基化短链直链淀粉复合物纳米粒子的制备与表征

在这项工作中，我们使用反溶剂沉淀法制备玉米醇溶蛋白/羧甲基化的短链直链淀粉（CSA）复合物纳米颗粒，用于胰岛素包封，这表明载有胰岛素的玉米醇溶蛋白/ CSA复合物纳米颗粒是均质的，通常尺寸小于200 nm，分布狭窄（多分散指数<0.100），球形和强负电荷（-40 mV）。傅里叶变换红外光谱分析表明，上述纳米颗粒的形成主要是由CSA，胰岛素和玉米醇溶蛋白之间的疏水，氢键和静电相互作用驱动的。与玉米醇溶蛋白纳米颗粒相比，玉米醇溶蛋白/ CSA复合物纳米颗粒具有更高的胰岛素包封效率（分别为45.8和90.5％），并且对Caco-2细胞基本无毒。因此，