Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, Jiangsu Provincial Key Medical Discipline, Nanjing, 210008, China.
State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2022 Jan;9(1):e2103384. doi: 10.1002/advs.202103384. Epub 2021 Nov 1.
Micromotors have opened novel avenues for drug delivery due to their capacity for self-propelling. Attempts in this field trend towards ameliorating their functions to promote their clinical applications. In this paper, an ingenious suction-cup-inspired micromotor is presented with adhesive properties for drug delivery in the stomach. The micromotors are fabricated by using hydrogel replicating the structure of suction-cup-like microparticles, which derive from self-assembly of colloidal crystals under rapid solvent extraction, followed by loading magnesium (Mg) in the bottom spherical surface. The Mg-loaded micromotors can realize spontaneous movement due to the continual generation of hydrogen bubbles in gastric juice. The combination of unique suction-cup-like structure with excellent motion performance makes the micromotor an ideal carrier for drug delivery as they can efficiently adhere to the tissue. Moreover, benefiting from the porous structure, the hydrogel micromotors exhibit a high volume-surface ratio, which enables efficient drug loading. It is demonstrated that the suction-cup-inspired micromotors can adhere efficiently to the ulcer-region in the stomach and release drugs due to their distinctive architecture and spontaneous motion, exhibiting desirable curative effect of gastric ulcer. Thus, the suction-cup-inspired micromotors with adhesive properties are expected to advance the development of micromotor in clinical applications.
微马达因其自推进能力而在药物输送方面开辟了新途径。该领域的尝试倾向于改善其功能，以促进其临床应用。本文提出了一种巧妙的基于吸盘启发的微马达，具有用于胃部药物输送的粘附特性。微马达通过使用水凝胶复制吸盘状微颗粒的结构来制造，这些微颗粒是由胶体晶体在快速溶剂萃取下自组装形成的，然后在底部球形表面装载镁（Mg）。由于胃中的消化液中不断产生氢气气泡，负载 Mg 的微马达可以实现自发运动。独特的吸盘状结构与出色的运动性能相结合，使微马达成为药物输送的理想载体，因为它们可以有效地附着在组织上。此外，得益于多孔结构，水凝胶微马达具有高的体积-表面积比，从而能够实现高效的药物负载。实验表明，基于吸盘启发的微马达可以由于其独特的结构和自发运动而有效地附着在胃部的溃疡区域并释放药物，从而对胃溃疡表现出理想的治疗效果。因此，具有粘附特性的基于吸盘启发的微马达有望推动微马达在临床应用中的发展。
