Fabrication and Characterization of a Novel Anticancer Drug Delivery System: Salecan/Poly(methacrylic acid) Semi-interpenetrating Polymer Network Hydrogel

Salecan is a novel linear extracellular polysaccharide with a linear backbone of 1–3-linked glucopyranosyl units. Salecan is suitable for preparing hydrogels for biomedical applications due to its prominent physicochemical and biological profiles. In this contribution, a variety of innovative semi-interpenetrating polymer network (semi-IPN) hydrogels consisting of Salecan and poly­(methacrylic acid) (PMAA) were developed via free radical polymerization for controlled drug delivery. The successful fabrication of the semi-IPNs was verified by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and thermogravimetric (TGA) measurements. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and rheology analyses demonstrated that the morphological and mechanical behaviors of the resultant hydrogels were strongly affected by the contents of Salecan and cross-linker <i>N</i>,<i>N</i>′-methylenebis­(acrylamide) (BIS). Moreover, the swelling properties of these hydrogels were systematically investigated, and the results indicated that they exhibited pH sensitivity. The drug delivery applications of such fabricated hydrogels were further evaluated from which doxorubicin (Dox) was chosen as a model drug for in vitro release and cell viability studies. It was found that the Dox release from the Dox-loaded hydrogels was significantly accelerated when the pH of the release media decreased from 7.4 to 5.0. Toxicity assays confirmed that the blank hydrogels had negligible toxicity to normal cells, whereas the Dox-loaded hydrogels remained high in cytotoxicity for A549 and HepG2 cancer cells. All of these attributes implied that the new proposed semi-IPNs serve as potential drug delivery platforms for cancer therapy