LAUSR

Abstract Hypothesis Nowadays nanomedicine appears to be the most promising field in the area of nanotechnology. Diseases such as cancer, which lack of early diagnosis and therapy, are now able to be faced up via small nanoscale objects characterized by unique physicochemical characteristics. Nanocarriers have been investigated in the last years as a result of their ability to selectively target the diseased area. The present work deals with multi-sensitive hollow polymeric nanoformulations with well-tuned size, shape and cargo loading. Experiments The synthetic route of biocompatible polymeric drug delivery systems consists of five steps. In the first step the core of methacrylic acid (MAA) was fabricated and then in the second step the first temperature-sensitive layer was added. An additional layer, the pH sensitive, was synthesized in the third step and last, in the fourth step the redox sensitive shell was fabricated. The layers were synthesized by distillation precipitation co-polymerization via layer by layer methodology. In the final step, the core-shell structures were modified in order to encapsulate chemotherapeutic agents, such as daunorubicin (DNR) and Cisplatin. The loading capacity (% L.C.) and encapsulation efficiency (% E.E.) percentages were measured by the standard curve methodology. Furthermore, the releasing properties of the multi responsive nanocarriers were investigated, applying the above already mentioned approach. Finally, cell migration and cell viability studies were performed in human breast epithelial cancer MCF-7 and normal human keratinocyte NCTC 2544 cell lines both in the presence and absence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by using scavenging agents in order to evaluate the cell proliferation efficiency along with the apoptotic effect induced by these multi-sensitive drug delivery systems. Findings To this end, the hollow nanospheres presented an excellent release behaviour with DNR and Cisplatin under acidic environment, high temperature as well as in the presence of glutathione. Moreover, the cell proliferation assay in conjunction to the wound-healing assays indicated that the hollow NCs are non-toxic both in healthy and cancer cells in contrary to the loaded ones.