Functional Nanogels for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

This review addresses current and future perspectives of nanogel technology for nanomedicine. The synthetic methodologies and material properties of nanogels prepared by chemical meanings are discussed in detail, and examples that illustrate the different methodologies are presented. Applications in the fields of drug and gene delivery, smart imaging modalities, responsive materials, and multivalency as a therapeutic approach highlight the enormous potential of the functional nanogels as novel polymeric platforms for biomedicine.

Biocompatibility and characterization of polyglycerol-based thermoresponsive nanogels designed as novel drug-delivery systems and their intracellular localization in keratinocytes

“…efficiently into the viable epidermis of human skin which is primarily composed of keratinocytes (Asadian-Birjand et al, 2012a;Samah et al, 2010;Witting et al, 2015). Potential interactions with keratinocytes of the viable epidermis cannot be entirely excluded, particularly in diseased and, hence, barrier impaired skin.…”

“…The tNGs were synthesized and characterized in accordance to previously reported methods and protocols (Asadian-Birjand et al, 2012b;Cuggino et al, 2011a;Giulbudagian et al, 2014). Briefly, for the synthesis of pNIPAM-based nanogels (tNG_dPG_pNIPAM), pNIPAM (66 mg), acrylated dendritic polyglycerol (dPG-Ac 10% ) (33 mg), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) (1.8 mg) and ammonium persulfate (APS) (2.8 mg) were dissolved in 5 mL of distilled water.…”

“…Dendrimers composed of dendritic polyglycerol (dPG) are hyperbranched synthetic macromolecules that exhibit high-water solubility and biocompatibility (Goyal et al, 2016;Witting et al, 2015;Yang et al, 2012). Interestingly, dPG can serve as a macromolecular reagent to fabricate cross-linked hydrophilic three-dimensional polymeric networks referred to as nanogels (Asadian-Birjand et al, 2012aKabanov & Vinogradov, 2009). Moreover, dPG-based nanogels that respond to external stimuli such as temperature may enable targeted and controlled drug transport (Bergueiro & Calderon, 2015;Cuggino et al, 2011a).…”

Facile ultrasonication approach for the efficient synthesis of ethylene glycol-based thermoresponsive nanogels

“…NGs are a type of cross-linked, nanometric-sized hydrogel particles that offer several advantages over other polymer-based drug delivery systems. [1][2][3] Thus, they can be easily synthesized with tunable sizes on the nanometer scale and present a higher stability upon dilution compared to other drug delivery systems such as classical polymeric micelles. NGs have a large surface area that allows further modication with biomolecules or targeting ligands and the interior network structure can be employed for the encapsulation and protection of drugs, proteins, or nucleic acids.…”

“…1,4 One of the most interesting features of NGs is their ability to undergo rapid conformational changes in response to an external stimulus such as pH, temperature, reductive environments, magnetic elds, or irradiation. 3,[5][6][7] In particular, NGs prepared from thermoresponsive polymers exhibiting a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) in aqueous medium are promising materials for bioapplications such as temperatureinduced drug delivery or tissue engineering. 5,[8][9][10][11][12] Such polymers are soluble in water below the LCST but collapse at temperatures above it, prompting the expulsion of water and the consequent shrinking of the NG.…”