Preparation of doxorubicin loaded Poly(ethylene glycol)-Poly(ε-caprolactone)-hydroxyapatite fibres as drug delivery systems

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to develop implantable Doxorubicin (DOX)-incorporated into biodegradable monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(ε-caprolactone)-hydroxyapatite (MPEG-PCL-HA) fibres for drug delivery system in situ. In this paper, MPEG-PCL-HA nanoparticles (NPs) was prepared by surface grafting reaction of ε-caprolactone and MPEG. The obtained MPEG-PCL-HA NPs were characterised by 1H-NMR, FT-IR, XRD and TEM. Three-dimensional (3-D) porous fibres based on DOX loaded into MPEG-PCL-HA NPs were prepared by electrospinning method. The surface morphology of the composite fibres were investigated by SEM, which showed that the average fibre diameter decreased from about 3.4 µm to 2.1 µm. In vitro release behaviour of doxorubicin from the fibre mats was also studied in detail. The cytotoxicity of DOX/MPEG-PCL-HA fibres was evaluated by MTT assay in human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7). The experimental results strongly suggested that DOX/MPEG-PCL-HA composite fibres might have great potential application in drug delivery, especially postoperative local chemotherapy.