Peptide amphiphiles (PA) self-assemble into three dimensional hydrogels which are suitable environment to encapsulate both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drug molecules. PA hydrogels have significant advantages for controlled drug delivery applications due to their high capacity to retain water, biocompatibility, and biodegradability. The drug release through the PA hydrogels can be sustain via local concentration gradient or different environmental factors including pH, temperature and enzymatic activation etc. In this study, we aim to develop injectable and biodegradable self-assembled PA hydrogels which can form three dimensional supramolecular networks at physiological conditions. Doxorubicin which was FDA approved and clinically used chemotherapeutic molecule for breast cancer treatments is selected as a drug molecule and encapsulated within PA hydrogels with 100% efficiency. After the characterizations of the physical and chemical properties of the PA self-assembled PA hydrogels prepared at different concentrations, the release behavior of the drug molecule through the PA hydrogels was studied at physiological conditions; and the diffusion parameters of the drug molecule within the PA hydrogels were estimated using Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) technique. Moreover, breast cancer model using 4T1 cancer cell line were developed to test the applicability of doxorubicin encapsulated self-assembled PA hydrogels for breast cancer treatments at <i>in vivo </i>conditions.

Controlled local chemotherapeutic drug delivery through self-assembled peptide amphiphile hydrogels

251st National Meeting (2016)

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