Zinc‐doped hydroxyapatite as a pH responsive drug delivery system for anticancer drug 6‐mercaptopurine

Abstract

Abstract6‐Mercaptopurine (6MP) is commonly used in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia as an important agent in maintenance therapy. Despite its therapeutic benefits, 6MP has some limitations during therapy. Taking into account the disadvantages during 6MP therapy, there is a great need to create an appropriate delivery system for this drug. 6MP contains in its structure nitrogen and sulfur atoms capable of forming coordination compounds with metal ions, for example zinc. Therefore, in this work, we prepared biocompatible hydroxyapatite (HAp) doped with zinc ions, and used it as a carrier for 6MP. Doped HAp has not been used as a carrier for this drug before. The work proved that the prepared carrier‐drug system has a particle size of about 130 nm, which indicates its potential for intravenous delivery. In addition, in an acidic environment (imitating cancer cells), the carrier agglomerates allow targeted release of the drug. The drug is evenly distributed, which indicates that the doses released from it will always be comparable. The release of the drug in a neutral environment is long‐lasting in controlled doses, whereas in an acidic environment it is immediate. The obtained results indicate the high potential of the material in both slow‐release and cancer‐targeted release of 6MP.

Development of a hydroxyapatite-based composite: Sr-doped HAp/NiO proven to be an efficient nanocatalyst for photocatalytic degradation of organic dye and photoreduction of Cr(vi)

“…Thus, these modifications also have a considerable impact on the biological response of doped HAp, both in vitro and in vivo . 5 To date, different research groups have reported the synthesis of doped-HAp materials and utilized such materials in a variety of fields including medicine, 6 catalysis, 7 photocatalysis, 8 bone tissue engineering, 9 drug delivery 10 and so on. Out of these, photocatalysis is one of the most widely explored applications of modified hydroxyapatite materials.…”