Abstract
In this work, with the drug oxytetracycline (OTC) released, cell cytotoxicity and antimicrobial studies of dual-responsive sodium alginate and N-Isopropylacrylamide hydrogels (SA/pNIPAAm) with enclosed OTC were investigated. The molecular OTC release was explored with different acid-base conditions and temperature conditions. In order to characterize cell cytotoxicity and antimicrobial efficacy, time-dependent OTC release analysis of different acid-base conditions was performed in SA/pNIPAAm hydrogels. OTC@SA/pNIPAAm hydrogels showed excellent time-dependent antimicrobial efficacy, in which the IC50 values were 50.11 μg mL−1, 34.27 μg mL−1, and 22.39 μg mL−1 among three consecutive days, respectively. Meanwhile, the human cells showed excellent viability at the IC50 dosage of OTC@SA/pNIPAAm (50.11 μg mL−1). OTC@SA/pNIPAAm performed in this study indicated that SA/pNIPAAm may serve as drug carriers for sustainable release at a specific concentration and for being employed as substrates for decreasing drug toxicity. Besides, pH-responsive and thermos-responsive SA/pNIPAAm may lead to the better selectivity of drug release in the ideal location or site. Finally, the results demonstrate that the designed, dual-responsive, biocompatible OTC@SA/pNIPAAm hydrogels showed excellent antimicrobial efficacy and may potentially be found to have enormous applicability in the field of pharmaceutics.
Highlights
A significant amount of efforts has been made in the search for appropriate drug carriers that could predominantly deliver therapeutic molecules with high efficiency [1,2,3]
Sodium alginate (SA)/pNIPAAm hydrogels were prepared by EDC/NHS-based polymerization approach
It was evident from the results that the Tg value of SA/pNIPAAm was reduced compared to the individual polymers SA and NIPAAM, demonstrating the deprived thermal stability of SA/pNIPAAm composite hydrogel due to the grafting of pNIPAAm into SA backbone
Summary
A significant amount of efforts has been made in the search for appropriate drug carriers that could predominantly deliver therapeutic molecules with high efficiency [1,2,3]. Successful attempts have been reported, involving the grafting copolymerization by synthetic polymers, such as poly (N-Isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) [22], poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) [23], polyacryl-amide [24], and poly (acrylic acid) [25], with the outcome of the temperature-sensitive and/or pH-sensitive gels. Motivated by these facts, SA/pNIPAAm hydrogels were fabricated as drug carriers for the controlled-release of OTC, giving special attention to the promising pH- and thermos-responsive effects (Figure 1). We have analyzed OTC release, cell cytotoxicity and antimicrobial studies by the application of temperature-sensitive and pH-sensitive SA/pNIPAAm hydrogels as drug carriers.
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