Stimuli-responsive degradation (SRD) or cleavage of dynamic covalent bonds in response to external stimuli is a promising property in the development of polymer-based multifunctional self-assembled nanocarriers as a broad choice of materials for targeted drug delivery. Exploring disulfide-thiol chemistry as an initial thrust, various strategies have been explored to synthesize novel micelles with disulfide linkages positioned at different single locations, as in the micellar core, in the interlayered corona, or at the interface between the hydrophobic core and corona. Recently, we have focused on an effective SRD strategy that centers on the development of new intracellular nanocarriers having multiple stimuli-responsive cleavable linkages at multiple locations (denoted as ML-MSRD strategy). This new strategy offers versatility in that the multi-stimuli responses to each stimulus can independently and precisely regulate drug release at multiple locations. Overall, the developed strategies enable the investigation of structure-property relationship between morphological variance and stimuli-responsive degradation. Ultimately, the results enable the optimization of degradable micelles offering enhanced release inside diseased cells, particularly targeted cancer cells.

New multilocation stimuli-responsive degradation strategy of block copolymer-based nanocarriers

248th National Meeting (2014)

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