Glucose-induced self-assembly in structurally diverse polyoxyethylene based nonionic surfactants for enhanced anticancer drug solubilization

This study investigates the influence of glucose in inducing the micellar growth/transition in several structurally diverse, longer, and shorter chain polyoxyethylene (POE)-based nonionic surfactants, commercially known as Kolliphor® HS15 (Solutol), Kolliphor EL®, Akypo®, Brij®-78, Pluronic® (P103 and F77), Tetronic® (T1304), and Tyloxapol® in aqueous solution environment. It was observed that the addition of glucose induces dehydration of the POE moieties or chains in the tested systems, thereby enhancing the inter-micellar interactions via hydrogen bonding in the hydrophilic part of the selected surfactants. This dehydration leads to an interesting clouding behavior across all the studied surfactant systems. Also, the dynamic light scattering (DLS) technique accounted for the probable self-assembly and micellar growth in water and 1 M glucose (fix) across various temperatures. Being pharmaceutical excipients, these micellar entities were successfully employed to assay the hydrophobic anticancer drug curcumin (Cur) solubilized, as confirmed by the peak intensity variation from UV–visible spectroscopy. Cur solubilization into glucose-containing micelles revealed enhanced solubility expressed in terms of drug loading efficiency (DL%), encapsulation efficiency (EE%), partition coefficient (log P), and standard free energy of solubilization (ΔG°), which is due to the glucose-induced hydrophobicity in the examined nonionic micellar systems.