earticle

영어

Drug targeting using colloidal carriers such as nanoparticles or colloidal carriers have been extensively investigated for the treatment of various disease in the biomedical field [1-3]. Especially, nanoparticles can be simply decorated with tumor-specific ligand and then used for site-specific delivery of anticancer agents to tumor cells since cancer cells have various kind of receptors [3]. Among them, hyaluronic acid (HA) receptor such as CD44 is especially over-expressed on the surfaces of highly malignant tumor cells. Then, HA nanoparticles can be used to target CD44 receptor of tumor cells [4]. Furthermore, HA can be considered as a ideal candidate for tumor-specific drug targeting because HA is a fully biocompatible material. In this study, we synthesized block copolymer composed of hyaluronic acid and oly(e-caprolactone) (HAPCL) to prepare nanoparticles for targeting of CD44 receptor. Chemical composition of HAPCL was confirmed using 1H NMR spectroscopy. Doxorubicin (DOX) as a model drug was incorporated into nanoparticles of HAPCL copolymer. The diameters of HAPCL nanoparticles were around 100nm and their morphology was spherical shape. CD44 receptor targeting of HAPCL nanoparticles was confirmed with MDA-MB231 cells. The treatment with DOX-incorporated nanoparticles revealed strong fluorescence intensity at MDA-MB231 cells. However, fluorescence intensity was significantly reduced when CD44 receptor was blocked by pretreatment with free HA, indicating that HAPCL nanoparticles have targetability aginst CD44 receptor.