Background Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a major type of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which could induce bloody stool, diarrhea, colon atrophy and eventually lead to colorectal cancer. The conventional daily oral administration of drugs only relieve the inflammatory response of colon in the short term, Biological agents such as antibody drugs has proven its efficiency in inhibiting colitis, while the low drug bioavailability means that large doses of antibodies are required, ultimately causing systemic toxicity. Small interfering RNA (siRNA) has significant advantages over antibody drugs in terms of safety and efficacy, and it have been widely applied as potential candidates for a variety of inflammation-related diseases. However, oral delivery of siRNA fails to overcome the degradation of the gastrointestinal environment to produce a significant therapeutic effect in ulcerative colitis. Herein, we design the hybrid delivery system that the siRNA loaded MOF encapsulated in the sodium alginate particles to overcome the barriers in the oral process. Results The hybrid delivery system (SA@MOF-siRNATNFα) was successfully constructed, and it could not only survive the low pH environment in the stomach and small intestine, but also taken up more by inflammatory macrophages, as well as released much more MOF-siRNATNFα. Moreover, SA@MOF-siRNATNFα tended to enriched and infiltrated into local colon tissues. As a result, SA@MOF-siRNATNFα significantly reduced the progression of colitis, of which the treated mice did not experience significant weight loss, bloody stools and diarrhea. Conclusion We confirmed that the formulation of hydrogel–metal-organic framework hybrids could improve the protection of incorporated payload in the gastric and early small intestine, enhancing the delivery of MOF-siRNA to colon.

Tumor-derived personalized hydrogel vaccine inhibited the tumor recurrence and metastasis through recruiting and maturating dendritic cells to foster the production of powerful antigen-specific T cells.

In the past two decades, protein drugs have evolved to become the most successful and important strategy in cancer therapy. However, systematical administration of protein drugs may cause serious side effects. In order to prepare a new promising hydrophilic drugs carrier, we constructed a PEGylated hyaluronic acid nanogel (NI-MAHA-PEG nanogel) with hypoxia and enzymatic responsiveness, which can selectively release hydrophilic drugs interleukin-12 (IL-12) on demand in a tumor microenvironment. We observed that release of IL-12 from nanogels by hypoxia-responsive stimulation, nanogels have anti-tumor effects on melanoma. Compared with physiological conditions, the IL-12 release rate has achieved remarkable growth under hypoxic conditions. Similarly, the drug release rate increased significantly with the addition of 500 U ml−1 hyaluronidase. We provide a novel strategy to allow efficient delivery, on-demand release, and enhanced access of proteins to hypoxic tumor regions. The rational design of this nanogels drug delivery system can further explore the use of various drugs to treat many cancers.