Journal
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY
Volume 20, Issue 36, Pages 7742-7753Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c0jm01301c
Keywords
-
Funding
- Ministry of Instruction, University, and Research (MIUR, Rome, Italy) [20089CWS4C_003]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Polymeric drug carriers have traditionally been considered important for enhancing drug stability and solubility, and improving transport properties of pharmaceutical molecules. Two polymers extensively studied in this regard are poly(lactide) (PLA) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO). Nonetheless, a systematic investigation of the main structural and physical factors influencing the ultimate morphology and structure of these block polymer nanoscopic aggregates is still lacking. In this work we report the results of a complete study on the self-assembly of (D-L)-PLA/PEO di/triblock copolymers in aqueous environment and in the presence of a model drug based on a molecular simulation recipe. In detail, atomistic molecular dynamics simulations were used to obtain dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) input parameters, and this mesoscale technique was employed to derive the entire phase diagrams for these systems. Scaling laws for micellar dimensions were applied, and micellar characteristics (e.g., aggregation number) were derived accordingly. The effect of drug-loading on the nanocarrier aggregated morphology was also investigated.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available