Polymeric Hydrogel Nanocapsules: A Thermo and pH Dual-responsive Carrier for Sustained Drug Release

Abstract

Hydrogel capsules show attractive prospects in drug delivery recently because of high drug loading and sustained release behavior. In this study we reported a simple and convenient route to fabricate poly (acrylic acid)-poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) (PAA-PNIPAm) hydrogel capsules by using hydroxypropylcellulose-poly (acrylic acid) (HPC-PAA) complexes as the templates. The capsules showed a high drug loading (∼280% to the weight of capsules) for Doxorubicin hydrochloride. The release of drug from the capsules was responsive to the temperature and pH of the surroundings, showing a low-rate but sustained release behavior favorable for low-toxic and long-term therapy. Together with the convenient preparation, high drug loading, dual responsivity as well as the sustained release feature, it is implied that this polymeric hydrogel capsule might be a promising candidate for new drug carriers.

Advanced stimuli-responsive polymer nanocapsules with enhanced capabilities for payloads delivery

“…Random copolymerization of monomers with different sensitive groups is a general and facile method to build smart PNCs. Such approaches were used to prepare pH/temperature, 52,53 or glucose/temperature 54 dual stimuli responsive PNCs. During the copolymerization, the sensitive group can also be placed in a crosslinker.…”

Acoustically enhanced microfluidic mixer to synthesize highly uniform nanodrugs without the addition of stabilizers

“…1 The drug's dissolution rate can be increased proportionally by reducing its size to nanometer scales, hence increasing its surface area-to-volume ratio. [2][3][4] Using nanoscale drugs also provides a wide range of therapeutic advantages, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] enhances targeted delivery to specific tissues, and improves the effectiveness of the drug by lowering its resistance and dose requirement. 12,13 In aerosol drug delivery, particle size plays a critical role in determining how deep the drugs will be deposited, 14,15 hence providing a crucial advantage to treat lung diseases.…”

Synthesis, Characterization and Drug Loading of Multiresponsive p[NIPAm-co-PEGMA] (core)/p[NIPAm-co-AAc] (Shell) Nanogels with Monodisperse Size Distributions

“…Moreover, NIPAm nanogels with such a core-shell morphology would illustrate dual responsive properties with respect to both temperature and pH. Separate studies have, so far, investigated the effect of either temperature on NIPAm gels [21,37], or pH [38,39], or both temperature and pH on core-shell gels [40,41,42]. A number of researchers have focused on the synthesis of NIPAm gels with increased VPTT (37–42 °C) for hyperthermal drug release [40,43,44] or synthesis of NIPAm gels with a focus on increasing the drug loading capacity.…”