Clegg John R, Ludolph Catherine M, Peppas Nicholas A
Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 W. Dean Keeton St., Stop C0800, Austin, Texas P. O. Box 78712.
McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 W. Dean Keeton St., Stop C0800, Austin, Texas P. O. Box 78712.
J Appl Polym Sci. 2020 Jul 5;137(25). doi: 10.1002/app.48655. Epub 2019 Oct 31.
Environmentally responsive nanomaterials have been developed for drug delivery applications, in an effort to target and accumulate therapeutic agents at sites of disease. Within a biological system, these nanomaterials will experience diverse conditions which encompass a variety of solute identities and concentrations. In this study, we developed a new quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) assay, which enabled the quantitative analysis of nanogel swelling, protein adsorption, and biodegradation in a single experiment. As a proof of concept, we employed this assay to characterize non-degradable and biodegradable poly(acrylamide--methacrylic acid) nanogels. We compared the QCM-D results to those obtained by dynamic light scattering to highlight the advantages and limitations of each method. We detailed our protocol development and practical recommendations, and hope that this study will serve as a guide for others to design application-specific QCM-D assays within the nanomedicine domain.
为了将治疗剂靶向并积累在疾病部位，人们开发了对环境有响应的纳米材料用于药物递送应用。在生物系统中，这些纳米材料会经历多种条件，包括各种溶质种类和浓度。在本研究中，我们开发了一种新的具有耗散功能的石英晶体微天平（QCM-D）测定法，该方法能够在单个实验中对纳米凝胶的溶胀、蛋白质吸附和生物降解进行定量分析。作为概念验证，我们采用该测定法对不可降解和可生物降解的聚（丙烯酰胺-甲基丙烯酸）纳米凝胶进行表征。我们将QCM-D结果与通过动态光散射获得的结果进行比较，以突出每种方法的优缺点。我们详细介绍了实验方案的制定和实际建议，并希望本研究能为其他人在纳米医学领域设计特定应用的QCM-D测定法提供指导。
