Biomacromolecules, Vol.17, No.9, 2992-2999, 2016
Fabrication of Reductive-Responsive Prodrug Nanoparticles with Superior Structural Stability by Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly and Functional Nanoscopic Platform for Drug Delivery
A highly efficient strategy, polymerization induced self-assembly (PISA) for fabrication of the polymeric drug delivery systems in cancer chemotherapy is reported. Diblock prodrug copolymer, PEG-b-P(MEO(2)MA-co-CPTM) was used as the macro-RAFT agent to fabricate prodrug nanoparticles through PISA. The advantages of fabricating intelligent drug delivery system via this approach are as following: (1) Simultaneous fulfillment of polymerization, self assembly, and drug encapsulation in one-pot at relatively high concentration (100 mg/mL); (2) Almost complete monomer conversion allows direct application of the resultant prodrug nanoparticles without further purification; (3) Robust structures of the resultant prodrug nanoparticles, because the cross-linker was used as the comonomer, resulted in core-cross-linking simultaneously with the formation of the prodrug nanoparticles; (4) The drug content in the resultant prodrug nanoparticles can be accurately modulated just via adjusting the feed molar ratio of MEO(2)MA/CPTM in the synthesis of PEG-b-P(MEO(2)MA-co-CPTM). The prodrug nanoparticles with similar diameters but various drug contents were obtained using different prodrug macro-CTA. In consideration of the long-term biological toxicity, the prodrug nanoparticles with higher drug content exhibit more excellent anticancer efficiency due to that lower dosage of them are enough for effectively killing HeLa cells.