Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8019855 | Materials Letters | 2014 | 4 Pages |
Abstract
Biodegradable and thermoresponsive star-block copolymer micelles were prepared and optimized for temperature-triggered drug release. The star-block poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl methacrylate-co-oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate) with lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of 42.8 °C was chosen to self-assemble into micelles for doxorubicin (DOX) loading. For comparison, the non-thermoresponsive star-block poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(ethylene glycol) micelles with similar composition and diameter were also used to load DOX. The thermoresponsive micelles exhibit an excellent temperature-triggered drug release behavior and pulsed response to the temperature switching between 25 °C (below the LCST) and 45 °C (above the LCST). The cytotoxicity assay confirmed the effective growth inhibition for HepG2 cells induced by DOX-loaded thermoresponsive micelles, while the blank micelles had low cytotoxicity and good biocompatibility. The confocal laser scanning microscopy suggested that the DOX-loaded micelles could internalize into cytoplasm and cell nucleus of HepG2 cells. The thermoresponsive star-block copolymer micelles can potentially be used in the controlled drug delivery applications.
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Authors
Jianbo Li, Junzhao Leng, Yang Qu, Li Deng, Jie Ren,