Biodegradable Smart Nanogels: A New Platform for Targeting Drug Delivery and Biomedical Diagnostics

Abstract

Nanogels (or nanohydrogels) have been extensively investigated as one of the most promising nanoparticulate biomedical platforms owing to their advantageous properties that combine the characteristics of hydrogel systems with nanoparticles. Among them, smart nanogels that have the ability to respond to external stimuli, such as pH, redox, temperature, enzymes, light, magnetic field and so forth, are most attractive in the area of drug delivery. Besides, numerous multifunctionalized nanogels with high sensitivity and specificity were designed for diagnostic applications. In this feature article, we have reviewed and discussed the recent progress of biodegradable nanogels as smart nanocarriers of anticancer drugs and biomedical diagnostic agents for cancer.

Advances in Stimuli‐Responsive Polypeptide Nanogels

“…Finally, the drug‐loading efficiencies (DLEs) of nanogels are much higher and the drug leakage is lessened due to their interior crosslinked networks . These advantages confirm the potential biomedical applications of polymer nanogels in the clinic …”

“…First, polymer nanogels can be formed by a large variety of materials, including gelatin, chitosan, poly( N ‐isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM), polypeptides, and many others . Furthermore, nanogels have a stable structure, which aids in maintaining the desired sizes for passive targeting via the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect . Finally, the drug‐loading efficiencies (DLEs) of nanogels are much higher and the drug leakage is lessened due to their interior crosslinked networks .…”

Efficacy of anesthetic rice nanogel on pain reduction in human oral cavity

“…Both LH and PH can be easily incorporated into RNG to obtained LH-RNG and PH-RNG because the nanogel also possess high hydrophilicity. Moreover, many researches have shown that the desirable features of the nanogels have high loading capacity for hydrophilic therapeutics, and their network protects the encapsulated drug molecules against degradation as enzymes cannot penetrate into the particles (33)(34)(35). Moreover, nanogel also show high mucoadhesive property (23).…”

Stimuli-responsive Hydrogels for Textile Functionalisation: A Review

“…e most recent research is therefore focused on the synthesis and application of nanogels [81, 93-94, 101, 111]. Nanogels combine the characteristics of hydrogels and nanoparticles [111] and result in a minimum e ect on the mechanical properties of a textile substrate. An applied nanogel coating is a homogenous, thin gel layer or particles, and therefore has a minimum effect on the performance and haptic properties of a textile substrate [94].…”