Featured Article: Chemotherapeutic delivery using pH-responsive, affinity-based release

Doxorubicin is a chemotherapeutic drug typically administered systemically which frequently leads to cardiac and hepatic toxicities. Local delivery to a tumor has a chance to mitigate some of these toxicities and can further be mitigated by including a means of tumor-specific drug release. Our laboratory has explored the use of molecular interactions to control the rate of drug release beyond that capable of diffusion alone. To this system, we added an additional affinity group (adamantane) to doxorubicin through a pH-sensitive hydrazone bond. The result was a modified doxorubicin which had an even higher affinity to our drug delivery polymer, and virtually no release in normal conditions, but showed accelerated release of drug in tumor-like low pH. Further, we show that adamantane-modified doxorubicin (adamantane-doxorubicin) and cleaved adamantane-doxorubicin showed equivalent capacity to kill human U-87 glioblastoma cells in vitro as unmodified doxorubicin. Taken together, these data demonstrate our ability to load high levels of modified chemotherapeutic drugs into our affinity-based delivery platform and deliver these drugs almost exclusively in the acidic microenvironments, such as those surrounding the tumor tissue via pH-cleavable bond while minimizing drug delivery in neutral pH tissue, with the ultimate goal of reducing systemic through better local delivery. Impact statement Doxorubicin (DOX) is especially cytotoxic to the heart, liver, kidneys, and healthy tissues surrounding the tumor microenvironment. This systemic toxicity can be partially addressed by local, tumor-specific drug delivery systems. While pH-sensitive DOX delivery systems have been developed by several other groups, many lack a prolonged and consistent release profile required to successfully treat heterogeneous tumors. Our system of a chemically modified form of DOX combined with an affinity-based cyclodextrin delivery system is capable of delivering DOX for 87 days while maintaining its the drug cytotoxicity. This finding is particularly relevant to improving cancer treatments because it enables regulated local delivery of DOX specifically to tumor tissue and allows the drug to be continuously delivered over a therapeutically relevant amount of time.

Drug loading into and drug release from pH- and temperature-responsive cylindrical hydrogels

Hydrogels that undergo deformation upon appropriate changes in pH or temperature have considerable promise as drug delivery vehicles. Drug uptake in swelling and nonswelling cylindrical hydrogels and drug release from these into a target fluid are investigated here. A mathematical model for hydrogel-solution composite, a composite of a distributed parameter system (cylindrical hydrogel) and a lumped parameter system (surrounding solution), is developed. The polymer network displacement in a swelling/deswelling hydrogel is described by a stress diffusion coupling model. The analytical solution for network displacement is used to predict solvent intake by swelling hydrogels, solvent efflux from deswelling hydrogels, and changes in pressure, porosity, and effective drug diffusivity. These in turn influence drug uptake during and after hydrogel swelling and drug release from hydrogel during and after deswelling. Numerical results illustrate benefits of hydrogel swelling for drug loading and merits of different modes of drug release. Drug uptake and drug release by temperature-responsive hydrogels are compared with those by hydrogels not subject to deformation.