Corona-Loading Strategies for Crystalline Particles Made by Living Crystallization-Driven Self-Assembly

Self-assembled block copolymer (BCP) nanoparticles offer exciting opportunities for drug delivery applications. A key feature of using BCP nanoparticles for drug delivery is their ability to accommodate therapeutic cargoes within their particle core. This has become widely established for BCP nanoparticles with an amorphous core. The same, however, cannot be achieved with BCP nanoparticles with a crystalline core. This is because the encapsulation of therapeutic cargoes in a crystalline particle core disrupts crystallinity and ultimately leads to particle disassembly. Herein, we present several strategies to incorporate therapeutics and other functional cargoes onto the surface of crystalline particles, as this helps to ensure that the crystallinity of the particle core is maintained and the particle morphology is hence unaffected. As a platform to showcase our strategies, in this study, we used biodegradable and bioactive 2D glycoplatelets prepared by living crystallization-driven self-assembly (CDSA). Specifically, we show that we can incorporate either an anticancer drug, doxorubicin (DOX), or a fluorescent dye, Cyanine5 (Cy5), onto the surface of glycoplatelets by seeded growth of prefunctionalized polymers or via postmodification using polymers with reactive handles. We believe that the strategies presented herein are versatile and should thus be applicable to other CDSA systems. Overall, our findings present new opportunities for crystalline particles to be used in drug delivery application.

Automated summary

The study discusses challenges and solutions for drug delivery using crystalline particles, emphasizing the importance of maintaining crystal core by incorporating therapeutic cargoes onto particle surface. Utilizing seeded growth and postmodification methods, anticancer drugs and fluorescent dyes were successfully attached to glycoplatelets.