No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The purpose of this work was to develop implantable curcumin-loaded poly(ε-caprolactone)-poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL-PEG-PCL, PCEC) nanofibers, which might have potential application in cancer therapy. Curcumin was incorporated into biodegradable PCEC nanofibers by electrospinning method. The surface morphology of the composite nanofibers was characterized on Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The average diameter of the nanofibers was 2.3-4.5μm. In vitro release behavior of curcumin from the fiber mats was also studied in detail. The in vitro cytotoxicity assay showed that the PCEC fibers themselves did not affect the growth of rat Glioma 9L cells. Antitumor activity of the curcumin-loaded fibers against the cells was kept over the whole experiment process, while the antitumor activity of pure curcumin disappeared within 48 h. These results strongly suggested that the curcumin/PCEC composite nanofibers might have potential application for postoperative chemotherapy of brain cancers.

In this study, we synthesized a biodegradable triblock copolymer poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(epsilon-caprolactone)-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG-PCL-PEG, PECE) by ring-opening copolymerization, and nanohydroxyapatite (n-HA) powder was prepared by a hydrothermal precipitation method. The obtained n-HA was incorporated into the PECE matrix to prepare injectable thermosensitive hydrogel nanocomposites. (1)H NMR, FT-IR, XRD, DSC, and TEM were used to investigate the properties of PECE copolymer and n-HA/PECE nanocomposites. The rheological measurements for n-HA/PECE nanocomposites revealed that the gelation temperature was approximately 36 degrees C. The sol-gel-sol transition behavior and phase transition diagrams were recorded through a test tube inverting method. The results showed that n-HA/PECE nanocomposites still had thermoresponsivity like that of PECE thermosensitive hydrogel. The morphology of the nanocomposites was observed by SEM; the results showed that the nanocomposites had a 3D network structure. In addition, the effects of n-HA contents on the properties of n-HA/PECE nanocomposites are also discussed in the paper. From the results, n-HA/PECE hydrogel is believed to be promising for injectable orthopedic tissue engineering due to its good thermosensitivity and injectability.