Study on stimuli responsive drug release, biocompatibility, and cellular uptake of polymer nanoparticles concluded

A series of novel random oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (OEGMA)-based copolymers (PFDG) is reported, that are able to give a coil-to-globule transition with phase segregation in response to temperature increases and pH changes. The study of the pH-responsive terpolymer loading of dyes in aqueous solution has been carried out, and loading efficiency results suggest that PFDG terpolymers are suitable encapsulation agents for hydrophobic and cationic molecules. Therefore, these terpolymers are proposed as encapsulation matrices for the preparation of drug-vector nanostructures (DVNs). Furthermore, wet-chemical modification of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) nanoparticles (NPs)surface with polyethyleneimine (PEI) prevented free PEI to be released in living cell, resulting in DVNs able to efficiently release microRNA. The functionalization of the polymer via aminolysis represents a simple, rapid and environmentally safe procedure, which is easily scalable to an industrial environment. PHB-PEI NPs enhanced cellular uptake of miR-124 with respect to a commercially available Lipofectamine® gene delivery system, and inhibited prostate cancer cells (PC3) proliferation, migration and invasion. Therefore, the high transfection efficiency and low cell toxicity make PHB-PEI NPs a promising delivery system for the treatment of prostate cancer in clinical trials