Ultrasound-guided drug delivery system utilizing piezocatalytic MoS2 nanomaterials for anti-inflammatory therapy

Abstract

Traditional drug delivery systems lack the potential of controlled drug release, thereby decreasing drug utilization and release efficiency. Herein, a next generation of stimuli-responsive drug delivery platform is designed based on piezocatalytic molybdenum disulfide nanoflowers (MoS2 NFs) which can be triggered by ultrasound (US) stimulation for effective acute inflammation therapy. Under US irradiation, MoS2 NFs undergoes piezocatalysis to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) owing to piezoelectric polarization, thus releasing loaded anti-inflammatory drug Indomethacin (IND) to the targeted inflammation site. The cumulative release of IND elevated significantly with the increase in the duration for US exposure due to the amplified ROS generation, which displayed a highly controllable nature of the as-designed drug delivery platform. For convenient applications, the IND loaded MoS2 NFs (IND@MoS2 NFs) was functionalized onto commercial dressings and their tunable in-vivo drug release performance was demonstrated in paw edema model. IND@MoS2 NFs upon US irradiation, controllably released IND into the site-specific inflamed paw which significantly inhibited 56 % of paw swelling in 6 h by suppressing the infiltration of neutrophils and expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). The highly controllable drug delivery system holds great potential in facilitating personalized, user-friendly theranostic applications with improved patient outcomes.