Properties, Bioactivity, In vitro Drug Release and Functionality as a Biomaterial of Poly(Apigenin) Hydrogel

Controlled release systems used in the biomedical industry or still in the animal testing phase generally use various chemicals, especially natural or artificial polymers. In recent years, there has been increasing interest in plant-based products as controlled release materials. For the first time in the literature, poly(apigenin) hydrogel was synthesized from apigenin, an important flavonoid. Swelling percentages and biodegradation percentages of poly(apigenin) hydrogel at different pH values were investigated. Structural analyses of poly(apigenin) hydrogel were performed using FT-IR (Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy). To examine drug release amounts and kinetics, different drug active ingredients (paracetamol, ceftriaxone, and 5-Fluorouracil(5-fu)) were loaded into the poly(apigenin) hydrogel. The release of paracetamol, ceftriaxone, and 5-fu from the synthesized poly(apigenin) hydrogel was determined as 95%, 58% and 96%, (pH 7.4) respectively. For kinetic studies, zero-order, first-order, Higuchi, and Korsmeyer-Peppas, models were used. When the correlation coefficients (R²) were compared, it was seen that the drug release kinetics fit better with the Korsmeyer-Peppas model. It was observed that the poly(apigenin) hydrogel synthesized in this study was a suitable material for the release systems of paracetamol, ceftriaxone, and 5-Fluorouracil.