Interactions of insulin aspart hexamer and excipients with plasticized polyvinyl chloride surfaces: A comprehensive investigation combining molecular simulations and experiments

Insulin aspart is a major therapeutic biomacromolecule used worldwide for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. It is administered either subcutaneously or intravenously, using infusion lines made most often from plasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Unfortunately, its very nature makes it at high risk of surface interactions with the materials it can come into contact with, leading notably to greatly decreased concentrations and patient underdosing. In order to prevent this phenomenon, for which no adequate solution yet exists, in-depth knowledge of the behavior of insulin aspart at the water-solid interface is needed. The aim of this work was to shed new light on this highly problematic interaction and explain the adsorption phenomenon of insulin aspart and its phenolic excipients (phenol and metacresol) to plasticized PVC tubings from a thermodynamic point of view by combining experimental and molecular dynamics simulations. Our results proved that the hexameric form of insulin aspart possesses an important affinity for the PVC surface, to which it adsorbs nearly instantaneously to, whilst phenol and metacresol interacts with the PVC/plasticizer interface of the material. The molecular simulations of these surface interactions correlate well with the sorption processes that can be assumed to happen with the negatively charged PVC surfaces. Thermodynamic values obtained via the molecular simulation process were used to model successfully the experimental data. This combination of theoretical approaches could help us in predicting the risk of interfacial interactions in biomacromolecular systems.