Novel Therapeutic Platform of Micelles and Nanogels from Dopa-Functionalized Triblock Copolymers

• Multi-drug delivery systems constructed from a basic polymeric scaold, and which have the ability to target a variety of biomedical applications, can streamline the development of nanomedicine to provide both environmental and economical relief. Herein, amphiphilic ABA-triblock copolymers are synthesized and assembled sequentially into micelles and nanogels as drug delivery systems following a thorough evaluation on advanced in vitro models to explore their potential for the treatment of cancer and bacterial infections. Short blocks of -methyl--allyloxycarbonyl-,-dioxan--one (MAC) are oli-gomerized from PEGk and thereafter functionalized with dihydroxyphenyla-lanine (dopa)-functional thiols using thiol-ene coupling (TEC) click chemistry. The copolymers self-assemble into well-defined micelles in aqueous solution and are further formulated into nanogels via UV-induced TEC. The resulting spherical micelles and nanogels are stable nanoparticles, with sizes ranging between  and  nm. The nanogels are found to be non-toxic to a panel of cell lines and mask the toxicity of the potent drugs until their release. The nanogels would be superior to micelles for the elimination of cancer cells supported by both D cell culture and a D spheroid model. The opposite conclusion could be drawn for bacteria inhibition.

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Fiber- och polymervetenskap

Fibre and Polymer Science

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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