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Nano Research 2019, 12(1): 115-119 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2188-4
Research Article | Issue | Published: 06 September 2018

Strong dual-crosslinked hydrogels for ultrasound-triggered drug delivery

Show Author's Information Wenxu Sun1,§,  Heting Jiang1,§,  Xin Wu1,§,  Zhengyu Xu1,  Chen Yao2,3,  Juan Wang1,  Meng Qin1,  Qing Jiang2,3,  Wei Wang1( ),  Dongquan Shi2,3( ),  Yi Cao1( )
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures,National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, and Department of Physics, Nanjing University,Nanjing,210093,China;
Department of Sports Medicine and Adult Reconstructive surgery,Drum Tower Hospital; Medical School, State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, Nanjing University,Nanjing,210008,China;
Joint Research Center for Bone and Joint Disease,Model Animal Research Center (MARC), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, Nanjing University,Nanjing,210093,China;

§ Wenxu Sun, Heting Jiang, and Xin Wu contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
hydrogel, dynamic covalent bond, mechanical force, drug release
Topics:
Controlled drug deliveryDiseasesDynamics Network architecturePathology
Cite this article:
Sun W, Jiang H, Wu X, et al. Strong dual-crosslinked hydrogels for ultrasound-triggered drug delivery. Nano Research, 2019, 12(1): 115-119. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-018-2188-4
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Hydrogels that can respond to dynamic forces either from endogenous biological activities or from external mechanical stimuli show great promise as novel drug delivery systems (DDS). However, it remains challenging to engineer hydrogels that specifically respond to externally applied mechanical forces with minimal basal drug leakage under normal stressful physiological conditions. Here we present an ultrasound responsive hydrogel-based DDS with special dual-crosslinked nanoscale network architecture. The covalent crosslinks endow the hydrogel high mechanical stability and greatly suppress deformation-triggered drug release. Meanwhile, the dynamic covalent boronate ester linkages between hydrogel backbone and the anti-inflammation compound, tannic acid (TA), allow effective ultrasound-triggered pulsatile release of TA. As such, the hydrogel shows distinct drug release profiles under compression and ultrasound. A proof-of-principle demonstration of the suppression of inflammation activation of macrophage upon ultrasound-triggered release of TA was also illustrated. We anticipate that this novel hydrogel-based drug delivery system can be used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases on load-bearing tissues, such as muscle and cartilage.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Strong dual-crosslinked hydrogels for ultrasound-triggered drug delivery

Show Author's information Wenxu Sun1,§, Heting Jiang1,§, Xin Wu1,§, Zhengyu Xu1, Chen Yao2,3, Juan Wang1, Meng Qin1, Qing Jiang2,3, Wei Wang1( ), Dongquan Shi2,3( ), Yi Cao1( )
Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures,National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructure, and Department of Physics, Nanjing University,Nanjing,210093,China;
Department of Sports Medicine and Adult Reconstructive surgery,Drum Tower Hospital; Medical School, State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, Nanjing University,Nanjing,210008,China;
Joint Research Center for Bone and Joint Disease,Model Animal Research Center (MARC), School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, Nanjing University,Nanjing,210093,China;

§ Wenxu Sun, Heting Jiang, and Xin Wu contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Hydrogels that can respond to dynamic forces either from endogenous biological activities or from external mechanical stimuli show great promise as novel drug delivery systems (DDS). However, it remains challenging to engineer hydrogels that specifically respond to externally applied mechanical forces with minimal basal drug leakage under normal stressful physiological conditions. Here we present an ultrasound responsive hydrogel-based DDS with special dual-crosslinked nanoscale network architecture. The covalent crosslinks endow the hydrogel high mechanical stability and greatly suppress deformation-triggered drug release. Meanwhile, the dynamic covalent boronate ester linkages between hydrogel backbone and the anti-inflammation compound, tannic acid (TA), allow effective ultrasound-triggered pulsatile release of TA. As such, the hydrogel shows distinct drug release profiles under compression and ultrasound. A proof-of-principle demonstration of the suppression of inflammation activation of macrophage upon ultrasound-triggered release of TA was also illustrated. We anticipate that this novel hydrogel-based drug delivery system can be used for the treatment of inflammatory diseases on load-bearing tissues, such as muscle and cartilage.

Keywords: hydrogel, dynamic covalent bond, mechanical force, drug release

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 01 August 2018
Revised: 18 August 2018
Accepted: 23 August 2018
Published: 06 September 2018
Issue date: January 2019

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2018

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This research is supported mainly by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21522402, 11674153, 81622033 and 21774057) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 020414380080).

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