Vinyl alcohol (VA) copolymers having fine tunable polarities are emerging materials in drug delivery applications. VA copolymers rendering well-defined molecular architecture (C/OH ratio = 2, 4, 5 and 8) were used as carriers for model drug compound, fluorescein, which exhibited significantly different release characteristics depending on the polarity of the polymers. Based on the preliminary drug release tests the well-defined VA copolymer having C/OH = 5 ratio, poly(vinyl alcohol alt-propenylene) copolymer (PVA-5) was selected for nanocomposite synthesis. Sorafenib anticancer drug was embedded into PVA-5 (C/OH = 5 ratio) nanoparticles by nanoprecipitation resulting in nanoparticles exhibiting unusual cubic shape. The sorafenib-loaded nanocomposites showed continuous release during a day and concentration-dependant cytotoxicity on HT-29 cancer cells. This might be interpreted by the sustained release of the drug.
Keywords: Controlled drug release; Cubic-shaped nanoparticles; Fluorescein; Olefin metathesis; Sorafenib; Vinyl alcohol copolymer.
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