Biophysical characterization, nanoscale composition and cell uptake studies of pH-sensitive drug delivery systems

• Autor(a) principal: Real Oliveira, M. Elisabete C.D.
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Nieder, Jana B., Ozolina, Raza, Carvalho, Ana M., Vilas-Boas, Vânia, Lúcio, M.
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/50323

Nanocarrier-based chemotherapy is one of the few nanotechnology-based medical therapies that reached the clinics. This happened already in 1995, when the commercial anti cancer drug delivery system DOXIL® was introduced in the market [1]. Albeit these early developments, still today nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems are far from reaching optimal selectivity and controlled release ability. In our study we use different liposomal formulations designed for pH-sensitive drug release and study their biophysical characteristics, when used for trafficking paclitaxel (PTX) and doxorubicin (DOX), both widely used chemotherapeutic anti-cancer drugs. Our work describes a combined spectroscopy and imaging approach to evaluate the biophysical properties of liposomal formulations. We study the nanoscale composition of the nanocarriers using molecular rulers in a fluorescence quenching assay, and analyze the cell uptake characteristics based on the autofluorescence of DOX using confocal microscopy.