Supramolecular hydrogel delivery systems have attracted widely attention owing to incorporating various therapeutic agents in carriers to decrease unpredictable toxicities, improve curative efficacy, and protect drug bioactivity. Nonetheless, the dual-functional supramolecular hydrogel integrating localized delivery and antineoplastic activities in one system have rarely observed. In this study, we successfully developed a novel supramolecular hydrogel, isoguanosine-borate-guanosine (isoGBG), with reversibly and dynamic borate ester bonds formed via boric acids and diols derived from nature products guanosine and isoguanosine in one pot by following a simple procedure. Both in vivo and in vitro results demonstrated that the isoGBG hydrogel not only displays excellent stability, self-healing properties and biocompatibility, but also has highly anti-tumor activities through inducing tumor cell apoptosis and excellent inhibition effect of tumor recurrence. These findings suggested that isoGBG hydrogel can serve as a dual-function hydrogel system integrating drug carrier and anti-cancer compound in one system, which provided a promising strategy for the design of functional supramolecular hydrogel in the local management of cancer in the future.
Keywords: Drug delivery; Isoguansine-borate-guanosine; Oral cancer therapy; Supramolecular hydrogel.
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