Facile Engineering of Anti‐Inflammatory Nanotherapies by Host‐Guest Self‐Assembly

Abstract

Anti‐inflammatory drugs have been broadly used for the treatment of different diseases, but many of them have low water‐solubility, thereby leading to poor bioavailability and limited clinical benefits. Herein we report host‐guest assembly of nanotherapies based on different hydrophobic anti‐inflammatory drugs, in which β‐cyclodextrin (β‐CD)‐conjugated polyethyleneimine (PEICDs) were used as host polymers. The spontaneous assembly and nanotherapy formation by PEICDs was first demonstrated using a nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drug indomethacin, showing high loading efficiencies and loading contents. Besides inclusion interactions, hydrogen‐bonding and electrostatic forces are responsible for effective host‐guest assembly. Moreover, this facile and robust approach can be generalized to other hydrophobic drugs. Due to the amorphous distribution of loaded drug molecules in nanotherapies, they can be rapidly and completely released, with the release rate relevant to the binding free energy between drug and β‐CD. Accordingly, this host‐guest assembly strategy is promising for developing effective anti‐inflammatory nanotherapies.

Dynamically Phototunable and Redox‐Responsive Hybrid Supramolecular Hydrogels for 3D Culture of Chondrocytes

“…[1] While numerous hydrogels are more conducive to nutrient exchange and uniform cell encapsulation, the covalently cross-linked hydrogels tend to be a static brittle network that is difficult to mimic the dynamic mechanical environment of ECM, which is detrimental to the ECM secretion for chondrocytes encapsulated within the hydrogel. [2] Unlike the covalently cross-linked hydrogels, supramolecular hydrogels constructed by hydrogen bonding interactions, [3] hydrophobic self-assembly, [4] host-guest self-assembly, [5] and other non-covalent bonds [6] can provide cells with not only a biomimetic 3D microenvironment but also the introduction of reversible noncovalent bonds can endow the gel network with unique shear-thinning [7] and selfhealing properties. [8] The shear-thinning performance is favorable for cell-friendly delivery and in situ encapsulation.…”