pH-responsive supramolecular nanoparticles based on sulfobutylether₇-β-CD/cationic surfactant and its controllable release of doxorubicin

Abstract

Novel supramolecular nanoparticles were successfully built by sulfobutylether₇-β-cyclodextrin and benzyl dodecyl dimethyl ammonium bromide. The assembly and disassembly behavior were determined by UV–Vis, Tyndall effect, dynamic light scattering, transmission electron microscopy, and zeta potential. Upon decreasing pH values, the resulting nanoparticles disassemble. The nanoparticles will be restored to spherical nanoparticles when the pH increases to the initial value. Due to the negative zeta potential, the nanoparticles showed good loading capacity for doxorubicin (DOX). DOX-loaded nanoparticles exhibited pH-responsive drug release behavior and possess higher cytotoxicity than the positive control, cisplatin. Thus, the simple and effective supramolecular nanoparticles with desirable load/release DOX property was constructed as pH-responsive drug delivery system.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Cationic surfactant
• cytotoxicity
• doxorubicin
• nanoparticles
• pH-responsive
• sulfobutylether₇-β-cyclodextrin
• supramolecular self-assembly

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21961046, 21362046and 21062030) and the YangFan Innovative and Entepreneurial Research Team Project of China (No. 201312S09).