A high performance nano-hybrid superabsorbent composite was prepared through the graft polymerization of acrylic acid into hydroxyethyl cellulose backbone chains in the presence of diatomite clay as an inorganic nano-filler.
Recently, there has been growing interest in the use of natural available materials to prepare superabsorbents due to their low-cost and environmental friendliness. In this study, a biodegradable organic-inorganic superabsorbent was prepared through graft copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA) onto xyloglucan (XG) polysaccharide chains, in the presence of diatomite as an inorganic material, N,N 0methylene-bis-acrylamide (MBA) as a cross-linker and ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator, in an aqueous solution (XG-g-PAA/diatomite). The synthesized hydrogel nanocomposite was characterized with FTIR, SEM, TGA and XRD. In this contribution, the properties such as swelling and water retention behavior of the XG-g-PAA/diatomite were investigated. Moreover, the influence of each starting material content on the water absorbency property of the XG-g-PAA/diatomite composite was systematically studied. The results showed that the composite water absorbency capacity was 1057.06 AE 69.53 g g À1 in deionized water and 65.67 AE 5.43 g g À1 in a 0.9 wt% NaCl saline solution under the optimized conditions. The excellent properties of the prepared SAP composite suggested that it could find a diverse range of applications such as in hygienic products, agriculture and waste-water treatment.Furthermore, being biodegradable and low-cost could be added advantages for the XG-g-PAA/diatomite superabsorbent composite.Scheme 1 Proposed mechanism pathway for the synthesis of biodegradable organic-inorganic SAP (XG-g-PAA/diatomite) superabsorbent composite through graft copolymerization.83734 | RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 83732-83742This journal is
A folate-targeted dextran-doxorubicin conjugate (folate-dextran-DOX) for drug delivery systems (DDSs) was synthesized by grafting DOX onto dextran through cleavable hydrazone bonds and a pH-sensitive spacer for controlling the drug release. Folate was coupled onto dextran as an ideal ligand for targeting hepatocytes. The conjugate was formulated into nanoparticles with excessive deprotonated DOX (DOX nano-DDSs) under aqueous conditions, which exhibited nanoparticles with larger size of 147.9 nm in diameter and improved drug entrapment to the level of 25.2%. DOX nano-DDSs delivered higher cytotoxicity and a greater extent of intracellular uptake in vitro against drug resistant HepG2 (HepG2/ DOX) cells; moreover, they displayed equivalent effects with folate-dextran-DOX micelles in terms of inhibiting tumor volume and decreasing toxicity. In addition, DOX nano-DDSs achieved significantly greater effects than free DOX. The results indicated that these targeted self-organized DOX nano-DDSs have superior reversal efficacy to free DOX and serve as a highly promising nano-platform for future cancer therapy.
A major challenge of combinatorial therapy is the unification of the pharmacokinetics and cellular uptake of various drug molecules with precise control of the dosage thereby maximizing the combined effects. To realize ratiometric delivery and synchronized release of different drugs from a single carrier, a novel approach was designed in this study to load dual drugs onto the macromolecular carrier with different molar ratio by covalently preconjugating dual drugs through peptide linkers to form drug conjugates. In contrast to loading individual types of drugs separately, these drug conjugates enable the loading of dual drugs onto the same carrier in a precisely controllable manner to reverse multidrug resistance (MDR) of human hepatoma (HepG2) cells. As a proof of concept, the synthesis and characterization of xyloglucan-mitomycin C/doxorubicin (XG-MMC/DOX) conjugates were demonstrated. This approach enabled MMC and DOX to be conjugated to the same polymeric carrier with precise control of drug dosage. The cytotoxicity and combinatorial effects were significantly improved compared to the cocktail mixtures of XG-MMC and XG-DOX as well as the individual conjugate of the mixture. Moreover, the results also showed that there was an optimum ratio of dual drugs showing the best cytotoxicity effect and greatest synergy among other tested polymeric conjugate formulations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.