Co‐delivery of methotrexate and doxorubicin via nanocarriers of star‐like poly(DMAEMA‐block‐HEMA‐block‐AAc) terpolymers

Abstract

Combined therapy is a promising strategy for clinical cancer treatment with synergistic effects. The purpose of the work reported was to evaluate a smart nanocarrier for co‐delivery of doxorubicin (DOX) and methotrexate (MTX). Since star‐like nanocarriers can load a high dose of drugs with various properties, we developed star polymer nanomicelles based on poly[(2,2‐dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate)‐block‐(2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate)‐block‐(acrylic acid)] having potential for multi‐drug delivery. The nanomicelles demonstrated high encapsulation efficiency, i.e. 97.1% for DOX and 79.5% for MTX. To this end, the star‐like terpolymers were synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization with pentaerythritol as an initiator. The micellar properties and dual stimuli‐responsive behaviour of the terpolymers were investigated using transmission electron microscopy, field emission scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering measurements, concluding that this co‐therapy offers a promising approach for cancer treatment. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry

Nanocarriers for methotrexate delivery/codelivery in the frame of cancer diagnostics and treatment: a review

“…The cancer cell growth was inhibited with an increase in the concentration of the micelles in the treatment groups. The micelles improved the cytotoxicity against MCF-7 cancer cell lines (Saraei et al, 2019).…”

Magnetic and pH-Responsive Magnetite/Chitosan (Core/Shell) Nanoparticles for Dual-Targeted Methotrexate Delivery in Cancer Therapy

“…Numerous polymers have recently been suggested to formulate MTX-loaded NPs for cancer therapy [4,[24][25][26][27][28][29]. Among these polymers, chitosan (CS), a naturally derived polysaccharide from chitin, offers a wealth of advantages that render it an ideal candidate for use in the design of nanoparticulate drug delivery systems.…”

Editorial: Biological stimuli-responsive smart materials

“…So far, several smart materials have been designed having the physical stimuli such as magnetic field, temperature, mechanical stimuli, electric field, light, ultrasound, chemical stimuli such as reduction and pH (Ghamkhari et al, 2018;Massoumi et al, 2019;Saraei et al, 2019;Khanizadeh et al, 2020), or biological stimuli such as glucose antigen and enzyme for regenerative medicine. Smart materials have many properties including the response to prolonged blood circulation, controlled drug release, ON-OFF switch activities, raised diagnostic accuracy, ability to generate specific stimuli, enhanced tumor accumulation, and therapeutic efficacy (Rezaei et al, 2021).…”