초록 |
To date, polymer micelles have been utilized as smart nanocarriers for cancer therapy. One of the recent issues is to improve the robustness of the polymer micelles, because the stability in the blood stream after i.v. injection is the prerequisite for successful delivery to tumor tissues. Herein, we describe a calcium phosphate (CaP)-mineralized polymer micelle for the design of a biocompatible nanocarrier. It is known that CaP is naturally found as the main mineral component in bone. We selected doxorubicin (DOX) as an anticancer drug, and the DOX-loaded polymer micelles (DOX-PMs) were prepared by self-assembly of poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine) copolymer in the presence of DOX. For mineralization of DOX-PMs, the calcium cations and phosphate anions were sequentially added to the aqueous solution of DOX-PMs. The DOX-loaded mineralized polymer micelles described in this work may serve as a robust nanocarrier for cancer chemotherapy. |