Polymeric Micelles for Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy

A special issue of Pharmaceutics (ISSN 1999-4923). This special issue belongs to the section "Drug Delivery and Controlled Release".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2024 | Viewed by 3793

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Pharmacy, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387, China
Interests: cancer; chemotherapy; drug delivery; peptide; prodrug; micelles; theranostics

E-Mail
Guest Editor
School of Chemistry, Tiangong University, Tianjin 300387, China
Interests: drug delivery; exosome; glycopeptide; glycosylation; oligosaccharide; tumor vaccines

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to an upcoming Special Issue on "Polymeric Micelles for Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy". Your expertise and research in this field would serve as a valuable contribution to the advancement of the drug delivery and cancer therapy research community.

Polymeric micelles have emerged as a promising platform for drug delivery applications due to their unique physicochemical properties, such as a high drug loading capacity, controlled drug release, and prolonged circulation time.

The Special Issue aims to highlight the recent progress and advances in the use of polymeric micelles for cancer therapy and drug delivery.

For this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Synthesis, characterization, and optimization of polymeric micelles for drug delivery and cancer therapy;
  • Mechanism of drug encapsulation, release, and interaction with biological entities;
  • Preclinical and clinical studies of polymeric micelles for cancer treatment and diagnosis;
  • Combination therapy using multifunctional polymeric micelles;
  • Design and engineering of polymeric micelles for targeted drug delivery.

We encourage submissions that report on novel findings regarding the development, characterization, and application of polymeric micelles in drug delivery and cancer therapy.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Jie Pan
Dr. Yonghui Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmaceutics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • polymeric micelles
  • drug delivery
  • cancer therapy
  • nanoparticles
  • targeted delivery
  • mechanisms
  • preclinical studies
  • clinical trials

Published Papers (2 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

16 pages, 3043 KiB  
Article
Preparation and Primary Bioactivity Evaluation of Novel Water-Soluble Curcumin-Loaded Polymeric Micelles Fabricated with Chitooligosaccharides and Pluronic F-68
by Pattarachat Ingrungruengluet, Dingfu Wang, Xin Li, Cheng Yang, Yaowapha Waiprib and Chunxia Li
Pharmaceutics 2023, 15(10), 2497; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15102497 - 20 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2445
Abstract
Curcumin (CU) is a bioactive compound extracted from turmeric and has various advantages. However, the benefit of CU is limited by its low water solubility (11 ng/mL). This research aimed to fabricate a water-soluble CU nano-formulation with chitooligosaccharides (COS) and pluronic F-68 (PF) [...] Read more.
Curcumin (CU) is a bioactive compound extracted from turmeric and has various advantages. However, the benefit of CU is limited by its low water solubility (11 ng/mL). This research aimed to fabricate a water-soluble CU nano-formulation with chitooligosaccharides (COS) and pluronic F-68 (PF) utilizing the polymeric micelle method. The optimized curcumin-loaded chitooligosaccharides/pluronic F-68 micelles (COSPFCU) exhibited high encapsulation efficiency and loading capacity (75.57 ± 2.35% and 10.32 ± 0.59%, respectively). The hydrodynamic diameter of lyophilized COSPFCU was 73.89 ± 11.69 nm with a polydispersity index below 0.3. The COSPFCU could be completely redispersed in water and showed high DPPH scavenging ability. Meanwhile, COSPFCU could significantly reduce the cytotoxicity of the RAW 264.7 cells compared to native CU. Furthermore, COSPFCU improved the inhibition of NO release activity at 72.83 ± 2.37% but 33.20 ± 3.41% for the CU, with a low cytotoxicity concentration in the RAW 264.7 cells. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Micelles for Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy)
Show Figures

Graphical abstract

16 pages, 3908 KiB  
Article
Superparamagnetic Nanocrystals Clustered Using Poly(ethylene glycol)-Crosslinked Amphiphilic Copolymers for the Diagnosis of Liver Cancer
by Ling Jiang, Jiaying Chi, Jiahui Wang, Shaobin Fang, Tingting Peng, Guilan Quan, Daojun Liu, Zhongjie Huang and Chao Lu
Pharmaceutics 2023, 15(9), 2205; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmaceutics15092205 - 25 Aug 2023
Viewed by 919
Abstract
Superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanocrystals have been extensively studied as theranostic nanoparticles to increase transverse (T2) relaxivity and enhance contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To improve the blood circulation time and enhance the diagnostic sensitivity of MRI contrast agents, we [...] Read more.
Superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanocrystals have been extensively studied as theranostic nanoparticles to increase transverse (T2) relaxivity and enhance contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). To improve the blood circulation time and enhance the diagnostic sensitivity of MRI contrast agents, we developed an amphiphilic copolymer, PCPZL, to effectively encapsulate SPIO nanocrystals. PCPZL was synthesized by crosslinking a polyethylene glycol (PEG)-based homobifunctional linker with a hydrophobic star-like poly(ε-benzyloxycarbonyl-L-lysine) segment. Consequently, it could self-assemble into shell-crosslinked micelles with enhanced colloidal stability in bloodstream circulation. Notably, PCPZL could effectively load SPIO nanocrystals with a high loading capacity of 66.0 ± 0.9%, forming SPIO nanoclusters with a diameter of approximately 100 nm, a high cluster density, and an impressive T2 relaxivity value 5.5 times higher than that of Resovist®. In vivo MRI measurements highlighted the rapid accumulation and contrast effects of SPIO-loaded PCPZL micelles in the livers of both healthy mice and nude mice with an orthotopic hepatocellular carcinoma tumor model. Moreover, the magnetic micelles remarkably enhanced the relative MRI signal difference between the tumor and normal liver tissues. Overall, our findings demonstrate that PCPZL significantly improves the stability and magnetic properties of SPIO nanocrystals, making SPIO-loaded PCPZL micelles promising MRI contrast agents for diagnosing liver diseases and cancers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Polymeric Micelles for Drug Delivery and Cancer Therapy)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop