writer：Liancheng Yin, Ting Su, Jing Chang, Bin He*, Zhongwei Gu
keywords：Modified Chitosan Nanoparticles, Drug Delivery
source：期刊
specific source：Nano, DOI: 10.1142/S1793292014500751
Issue time：2014年
Chitosan (CS) is an excellent natural biodegradable and biocompatible polymer for biomedical applications, however, its poor solubility in water or organic solvents limits its applications in drug delivery. In order to resolve this problem, chitosan was modified with acrylonitrile (AN) and arginine (Arg), the modified chitosan (AN-CS-Arg) was characterized by ¹H NMR and FTIR. The AN-CS-Arg was self-assembled into nanoparticles to encapsulate anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). The size and morphology of the blank and drug loaded AN-CS-Arg (AN-CS-Arg/DOX) nanoparticles were measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The mean size of both blank and AN-CS-Arg/DOX nanoparticles were around 50 and 170 nm, respectively. The drug loading content was about 12%. The release profile of AN-CS-Arg/DOX nanoparticles was investigated in vitro, 80% encapsulated DOX could be released within 80 h. The AN-CS-Arg nanoparticles were non-toxic to both NIH 3T3 fibroblasts and HepG2 cancer cells. The cellular uptake of the AN-CS-Arg nanoparticles was trafficked via Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy and Flow Cytometry, both results showed that the AN-CS-Arg nanoparticles could be internalized in HepG2 cells efficiently. The IC₅₀ of AN-CS-Arg nanoparticles to HepG2 cancer cells was 10.0 μg/mL. The AN-CS-Arg nanoparticles are potential carriers for anticancer drug delivery.