PH dependent biocompatible room temperature covalent organic polymers for selective chemotherapeutic drug delivery

Abstract

Covalent organic polymers (COP) are a special class of two-dimensional and three-dimensional cross-linked polymeric networks with repeating organic units. They are ideally suited for drug delivery applications because of their large surface area, porous nature, and tunable properties. Furan-2,5-dicarbohydrazide and 1,3,5-triformylbenzene were used to synthesize pH-responsive hydrazone-linked furan-based spherical COP(FRT-COP) at room temperature. The formulated FRT-COP were later stabilized using hyaluronic acid (HA) and then encapsulated anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX), utilizing the porous structure of the synthesized COP. The newly developed FRT-COP have a pore size of 10 nm, and FRT-COP-DOX-HA exhibit drug loading capacity of 34.4 % and an encapsulation efficiency of 52.32 %. The 80 % viability of NIH 3T3 cells and 82.1 % viability of the CT2A cells, even at a higher concentration of 100 μg/mL of the carrier system, proves the outstanding biocompatibility of the carrier system for chemotherapeutic drug delivery administration. The FRT-COP-DOX-HA-treated NIH-3T3 normal cell line exhibits a viability of 80.59 % at a material concentration of 25 μg/mL. Furthermore, CT2A cancer cell lines show a viability of 33.1 % at a material concentration of 25 μg/mL. The in vivo results obtained from the experiments performed on male BALB/c nude mice also unequivocally demonstrated the exceptional suitability of the proposed drug delivery carrier system for antitumor chemotherapeutic drug administration.