Summary:
The drug delivery systems based on polymers have attracted the main interest of
considerable research for cancer therapy. The application of "smart" polymers,
which respond into changes in their environment, it is widespread and there are
many studies that have been reported for use as biocompatible nano-carriers
selectively targeting cancer cells.
Until now the conventional chemotherapeutic drugs due to non-specific
targeting, destroy the cancerous cells, but also destroy a large proportion of
healthy cells. This problem, cytotoxicity, solved effectively the
implementation of "smart" polymers which is a promising method for the targeted
treatment of many types of cancer, and the side effects minimized up to zero.
In this report, we have synthesized and characterized hollow ΝCs with different
sensitivities, as potential drug delivery systems for cancer treatment. The
main advantage of this work as it concerns the synthetic procedure is the inner
cavity that is formed during the shell formation, allowing small molecules of
biological interest to be hosted and the synergistic behavior of the drug
release in the tumor area. The fabricated ΝCs have an average diameter of about
300 nm and are responsive to pH, temperature and redox alterations. The release
behavior of the loaded ΝCs under physiological and acidic conditions, in two
temperatures, confirms the ΝC's sensitivity.
Keywords:
biocompatible, selective targeting, tumor cells, cytotoxicity, synergestic effect
