pH-Sensitive, N-ethoxybenzylimidazole (NEBI) bifunctional crosslinkers enable triggered release of therapeutics from drug delivery carriers
作者:Alice Luong、Tawny Issarapanichkit、Seong Deok Kong、Rina Fong、Jerry Yang
DOI:10.1039/c0ob00228c
日期:——
This paper presents a pH-sensitive bifunctional crosslinker that enables facile conjugation of small molecule therapeutics to macromolecular carriers for use in drug delivery systems. This N-ethoxybenzylimidazole (NEBI) bifunctional crosslinker was designed to exploit mildly acidic, subcellular environments to trigger the release of therapeutics upon internalization in cells. We demonstrate that an analog of doxorubicin (a representative example of an anticancer therapeutic) conjugated to human serum albumin (HSA, a representative example of a macromolecular carrier) via this NEBI crosslinker can internalize and localize into acidic lysosomes of ovarian cancer cells. Fluorescence imaging and cell viability studies demonstrate that the HSA-NEBI-doxorubicin conjugate exhibited improved uptake and cytotoxic activity compared to the unconjugated doxorubicin analog. The pH-sensitive NEBI group was also shown to be relatively stable to biologically-relevant metal Lewis acids and to serum proteins, supporting that these bifunctional crosslinkers may be useful for constructing drug delivery systems that will be stable in biological fluids such as blood.
本文介绍了一种pH敏感的双功能交联剂,能够方便地将小分子治疗药物与大分子载体结合,用于药物递送系统。这种N-乙氧基苄咪唑(NEBI)双功能交联剂的设计旨在利用温和酸性亚细胞环境,在细胞内化后触发药物的释放。我们展示了通过这种NEBI交联剂与人血清白蛋白(HSA,代表大分子载体的例子)结合的多柔比星(抗癌治疗药物的代表例子)类似物,能够内化并定位到卵巢癌细胞的酸性溶酶体中。荧光成像和细胞活力研究表明,HSA-NEBI-多柔比星结合物相比于未结合的多柔比星类似物,表现出更好的摄取和细胞毒性活性。pH敏感的NEBI基团在生物相关的金属路易斯酸和血清蛋白中也表现出相对稳定性,支持这些双功能交联剂可能有助于构建在生物液体(如血液)中稳定的药物递送系统。