Cellulose-graft-poly(methyl methacrylate) nanoparticles with high biocompatibility for hydrophobic anti-cancer drug delivery

Cellulose-based nanoparticles have very fine application foreground in drug delivery. Herein, a new cellulose-hydrophobic polymer hybrid nanoparticle (CE-g-PMMA NPs) with low polydispersity index has been builted by an easy method. The obtained nanoparticles with 2029 wt% of PMMA possessed appropriate size (∼120 nm), high drug loading efficiency (∼20 wt% BA) and a slow drug release rate. The CE-g-PMMA NPs not only showed excellent biocompatibility, More important, compared to the free betulinic acid (BA), the BA-loaded CE-g-PMMA NPs significantly improved the cellular cytotoxicity and reduced the risk of side-effect. This cellulose-based “green nanoparticles” showed highly potential for hydrophobic anti-cancer drug delivery.