Xiao Liying, Lu Guozhong, Lu Qiang, Kaplan David L
Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, People's Republic of China.
National Engineering Laboratory for Modern Silk, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, People's Republic of China.
ACS Biomater Sci Eng. 2016 Nov 14;2(11):2050-2057. doi: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.6b00457. Epub 2016 Sep 22.
Silk is useful as a drug carrier because of its biocompatibility, tunable degradation, and capacity in maintaining the function of drugs. However, further refinements are still required for silk-based nanoparticles to optimize applications as anticancer drug delivery systems. Here, a novel strategy was developed to prepare silk nanoparticles with improved performance. Unlike previous preparation methods that first obtain silk solutions and then induce nanoparticle formation through different treatments, here silk nanoparticles were directly prepared after a modified dissolution process. The nanoparticles had amorphous structure and homogeneous morphology, as well as improved dispersion in water and PBS solutions and improved pH-dependent drug release behavior when compared with the traditionally prepared silk nanoparticles. These improvements resulted in better uptake of the nanoparticles into cancer cells and higher cytotoxicity against cancer cells. These properties, when combined with the simpler and milder preparation process, indicate potential utility for anticancer drug delivery.
丝绸因其生物相容性、可调节的降解性以及维持药物功能的能力而成为一种有用的药物载体。然而，基于丝绸的纳米颗粒作为抗癌药物递送系统的应用仍需要进一步改进以实现优化。在此，开发了一种新策略来制备性能更优的丝绸纳米颗粒。与以往先制备丝绸溶液然后通过不同处理诱导纳米颗粒形成的制备方法不同，此处是在经过改良的溶解过程后直接制备丝绸纳米颗粒。与传统制备的丝绸纳米颗粒相比，这些纳米颗粒具有无定形结构和均匀的形态，在水和磷酸盐缓冲盐溶液中的分散性得到改善，并且pH依赖性药物释放行为也有所改善。这些改进使得纳米颗粒对癌细胞的摄取更好，对癌细胞的细胞毒性更高。这些特性与更简单温和的制备过程相结合，表明其在抗癌药物递送方面具有潜在用途。
