An ionic hydrogel with stimuli-responsive, self-healable and injectable characteristics for the targeted and sustained delivery of doxorubicin in the treatment of breast cancer

Abstract

Targeted and sustained release of doxorubicin was achieved through a self-healable and injectable ionic hydrogel.

Glucose-induced self-assembly and phase separation in hydrophilic triblock copolymers and the governing mechanism

“…The hybrid B3LYP functional and the 6-31G(d,p) basis set were used to achieve geometry relaxation of the investigated molecules. The B3LYP method and used basis set are crucial for investigating large-molecule interactions [49][50][51] and to establish good and significant correlation with experimental results. [52][53][54] Furthermore, other characteristic phenomena, such as molecular orbitals (MOs) and their respective energies (E HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital) and E LUMO (lowest unoccupied molecular orbital)), the HOMO-LUMO energy gap (DE), polarizability (a), and molecular electrostatic potential (MESP) maps, are analysed.…”

Short Peptide-Based Smart Thixotropic Hydrogels

“…Thixotropy is an amazing mechanical property observed in many gel systems where the gels break into a quasi-liquid or solution-like state under mechanical strain and recover their original form (here, gel) under static conditions ( Scheme 1 ) [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. In layman’s terms, thixotropy is a reversible, isothermal, time-dependent shear thinning behavior of gel systems distinguished by reversible transformation from gel-sol-gel structural transition [ 2 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ].…”

“…Self-healing is another important rheological term recurrently connected to thixotropy and may be demarcated as the tendency of a gel system to eccentrically reorganize the bonding interactions after mechanical deformation [ 7 , 11 ]. The self-healing process can be visually established when separate pieces of gel connect to form an entity of hydrogel [ 4 , 5 , 12 , 13 ].…”

“…Depending on the recovery time of the non-covalent cross-links, these gels can be classified as strongly thixotropic (a considerable amount of time needed), moderate thixotropic and weakly thixotropic (rapid recover time) [ 28 ]. The thixotropic behavior of gels dictates the gels’ injectability nature, i.e., the rapid gel formation after being extruded through a high gauze syringe needle, which is indispensable for clinical operation [ 4 , 50 , 51 ]. These LMWGs usually showed storage moduli in the range of 10 2 –10 3 , which perfectly matches with native biological soft tissues, making them a good candidate for injectable hydrogels [ 51 ].…”

Ionogels Derived from Fluorinated Ionic Liquids to Enhance Aqueous Drug Solubility for Local Drug Administration

“…Firstly, the nanostructure and miscibility of the generated water/FIL colloid systems upon increasing FIL concentration as well as its corresponding gelatin Ionogels will be correlated to the viscoelastic properties and solvation power of the selected drug model compound, Doxorubicin (DOX). Furthermore, the characterization of the afforded Ionogels by thermal, rheological, FT-IR, Raman, cryo-SEM, AFM and X-rays techniques will be reported to understand the effect of the dispersed FIL phase in the aqueous matrix within the global Ionogel structure as well as its role in the stabilization of both the gelatin and Doxorubicin [ 49 , 50 ].…”