A Polymerizable Bioionic Liquid Based Nanogel: A New Nanocarrier for an Anticancer Drug

Nanogels (NGs) are considered as one of the most suitable nanocarrier matrices for drug, gene and protein delivery. There are many methods of synthesis of NGs but polymerizable bioionic liquids are not being applied so far for the synthesis of such nanocarriers. The synthesis of a stimuli-responsive NG system having average hydrodynamic size of 41 +/- 15 nm is reported here, obtained by the simultaneous polymerization and crosslinking of a polymerizable biobased ionic liquid. The NG thus obtained shows prolonged drug delivery for 5-fluorouracil, an anticancer drug, at pH 1.2 (stomach pH) for 10 days at physiological human body temperature (37 degrees C). However, no substantial drug delivery is observed at pH 5 and 7.4. Such a prolonged drug release profilemakes the reported NG system a potential candidate in the formulation of a pH-sensitive drug nanocarrier vehicle for in vivo delivery of stomach-specific therapeutic agents.