RESPONSIVE NANOGELS FOR ANTI-CANCER THERAPY

KAR, MRITYUNJOY ; GLITSCHER, EMANUEL ; NAGEL, GREGOR ; CALDERÓN, MARCELO ; FECHNER, LORYN ; RIMONDINO, GUIDO NOÉ

SMART MATERIALS. NANOGELS FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Año: 2017; p. 210 - 260

Stimuli-responsive nanogels have recently attracted significant attention, especially in the field of cancer therapy research. Careful introduction of specific polymeric modalities change ordinary polymeric nanogels into advanced stimuli-responsive nanogels capable of altering their physicochemical properties in response to various external or internal stimuli.Here, internal stimuli refer to physiological variances in different compartments of the body, for instance, the pH, altering redox conditions, and the appearance of specific enzymes. In contrast, temperature, light, magnetic fields, and electromagnetic waves are considered to be external stimuli. Stimuli-responsive building blocks are used to form nanogels, which can tailor their stability, payload encapsulation capacity, and target modality. Application of an internal or external trigger causes these nanosystems to change their physicochemical properties, e.g., change their conformation, size and charges, solubility, alter the hydrophilic/hydrophobic balance, or degrade chemical structures. This change in the properties can be used for a triggered release of their payload at the target site.34 The emphasis of this chapter is on various mainframe synthetic methods of nanogels, the fundamental understanding of their responsive behavior against various stimuli with applications in cancer therapy, as well as their future prospective.