Self‐assembled poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether‐grafted gelatin nanogels for efficient delivery of curcumin in cancer treatment

Abstract

Curcumin (CUR) is a natural active ingredient that attracted much attention for its chemotherapeutic activity against tumors without causing toxicity in healthy cells. However, it has certain limitations for being used in chemotherapy such as low aqueous solubility and hydrolytic instability in the physiological environment. In this study, self-assembled poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether-grafted gelatin (Gel-mPEG) nanogels were fabricated as delivery systems to improve the applicability of CUR in cancer treatment. CUR-loaded Gel-mPEG nanogels exhibited desired size range, relatively colloidal stability, and provided enhanced CUR stability in aqueous solutions. Especially, they showed significant high CUR loading capacity and better anticancer activity than free CUR as compared to previously reported CUR-loaded nanogels according to the best of our knowledge. Moreover, the in vitro release of CUR from the nanogels was controlled and prolonged up to 96 h. These results demonstrated that Gel-mPEG nanogels are the promising modality for the efficient delivery of CUR in cancer treatment.

Partial Surface Modification of Low Generation Polyamidoamine Dendrimers: Gaining Insight into their Potential for Improved Carboplatin Delivery

“…It was reported that DDSs having a size of less than 10 nm will be quickly cleared from the circulatory system due to extravasation and those with the size larger than 200 nm tend to be accumulated in the spleen or taken up rapidly by the mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS). By contrast, nanoparticles that range from 10–200 nm in size can be easily entrapped by endosome during endocytosis, thus facilitating the passive targeting and accumulation of nanoparticles to tumors through EPR effect and reducing toxicity to normal cells [26,42,43,44,45]. Moreover, the conjugation of hydrophilic mPEG on PAMAM G3.0 surface also avoids the action of RES and reduce renal clearance [25,46].…”

The Engineering of Porous Silica and Hollow Silica Nanoparticles to Enhance Drug-loading Capacity

“…In this phase, the weight loss of PNS was approximately 30%, whereas that of HMSN was only 13%, indicating that a small amount of CTAB may have remained in the HMSN nanoparticles. In the blood circulation, it was suggested that the extravasation and renal clearance of nanoparticles of less than 10 nm in diameter are more expedited than those of larger nanoparticles (<200 nm), which are likely to be retained for a longer period [29,30]. Accordingly, the achieved size of synthesized HMSN products have the potential to allow the particles to bypass early clearance through kidney and vascular leakage.…”

New Developments in Medical Applications of Hybrid Hydrogels Containing Natural Polymers

“…Gelatin has been used for nanogels preparation for different biomedical applications [401]. In this respect, activated PEG methyl ether was grafted onto gelatin backbone to obtain the gelatin-PEG copolymer and then self-assembled to form nanogels (Figure 8) that were encapsulated with poor water soluble curcumin (CUR) for cancer treatment [402]. Nanogels improved the solubility of CUR in the aqueous environment, protected it from the hydrolytic degradation and also increased the amount of delivered CUR in a control release manner, thus enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of CUR.…”

“…Representation for the preparation of curcumin-loaded gelatin-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) nanogels (reprinted from[402], open access).…”