Thermal and Photo Dual-Responsive Core-Shell Polymeric Nanocarriers with Encapsulation of Upconversion Nanoparticles for Controlled Anticancer Drug Release

摘要

A thermal and photo dual-responsive drug delivery system is newly designed for controlled anticancer drug delivery. The concept of this design is to encapsulate upconversion nanoparticles in a photoresponsive polymer to produce core-shell nanoparticles, in which NIR light is converted to UV/visible light to isomerize cross-linked bis(methacryloylamino)-azobenzene for the control of drug release. A facile scheme, which gives the details of two-step solvothermal treatment, microemulsion, distillation precipitation polymerization, and drug loading, is proposed to realize the design. The dual-responsive drug release behaviors of the system are reported to provide the information for potential development of cancer therapy. It is also found that the Baker-Lonsdale model is suitable for describing the drug release kinetics of this system and the values of the diffusion coefficient under various conditions are determined experimentally.