reduction-sensitive flower like magnetomicelle based on pcl-ss-peg-ss-pcl triblock copolymer as anti-cancer drug delivery system

Researchers are trying to design a smart nanocarrier to deliver anticancer drugs to cancerous tissues that minimizes the side effects of these drugs. in the same direction, herein we fabricated a reduction-sensitive magnetomicelle consisting of two polymers, peg and pcl, which are among the safest polymers in drug delivery systems. reduction-sensitive magnetomicelle was fabricated by self-assembly of pcl-ss-peg-ss-pcl, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (fe3o4) and doxorubicin (dox). the percentage of dox loading in dox- loaded magnetomicelle (d-lmm) was about 20%, which is acceptable compared to similar nanocarriers. the efficiency of d-lmm was compared with non-reduction sensitive control group (cd-lmm), free dox and commercial product of liposomal dox (ld) in vitro. collectively we found significant differences between the d-lmm and ld with respect to cellular uptake and toxicity behavior in human breast adenocarcinoma mcf-7 cells. in addition, due to the reduction sensivity, d-lmm displayed better results than cd-lmm in the cytotoxicity and apoptosis/necrosis assays.