Hyaluronic acid and hyaluronic acid: Sucrose nanogels for hydrophobic cancer drug delivery

Porous and biodegradable hyaluronic acid (HA) nanogel and their copolymeric forms with sucrose (Suc), HA:Sucrose (HA:Suc) nanogels, were synthesized by employing glycerol diglycidyl ether (GDE) as crosslinker with a single step reaction in surfactant-free medium. The size of the nanogels was determined as 150 +/- 50 nm in dried state from SEM images and found to increase to about 540 +/- 47 nm in DI water measured with DLS measurements. The surface areas of HA and HA:Suc nanogels were measured as 18.07 +/- 2.4 and 32.30 +/- 6.1 m(2)/g with porosities of 3.58 +/- 1.8, and 9.44 +/- 3.1 nm via BET analysis, respectively. The zeta potentials for HA and HA:Suc nanogels were measured as -33 +/- 1.4 and -30 +/- 1.2 mV, respectively. The thermal degradation of both types of nanogels revealed similar trends, while hydrolytic degradation of the nanogels was about 22.7 +/- 02 wt% in 15 days. Both HA and HA:Suc nanogels were stable in blood up to 250 mu g/mL concentration with approximately 0.5 +/- 0.1% hemolysis ratio and 76 +/- 12% blood clotting indices, respectively. Finally, these nanogels were used as a sustained slow-release or long-term delivery system over 2 days for a hydrophobic cancer drug, 3-((E)-3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)acryloyl)-2H-chromen-2-on (A(#)) established by our group. The nanogels successfully delivered the model drug A at 10.43 +/- 2.12 mg/g for 2 days. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.