Design, fabrication and evaluation of amphiphilic hyaluronic acid conjugates as efficient carriers of 6‐thioguanine for in vitro anticancer drug delivery applications.

Nanoparticle‐based polymeric carriers are highly desirable for efficient delivery of hydrophobic drugs. The development of nanocarriers with high encapsulation efficiency synthesized by a simple emulsification technique has become a challenging task with their controlled and sustained release ability at disease sites. Here, we have synthesized a series of hydrophobically modified hyaluronic–dodecylamide (HD) conjugates by coupling dodecylamine onto hyaluronic acid in varying amounts and characterized them using physicochemical techniques. The synthesized HD conjugates, in an aqueous medium, self‐assembled into nanoparticles of size in the range of ca 189–355 nm with hydrophilic surface and hydrophobic core. 6‐Thioguanine (TG) was used as a model drug for encapsulation into the hydrophobic core of the conjugate (HD‐2) by the standard emulsification technique with high encapsulation efficiency. Spectrophotometric analysis revealed that the drug‐loaded nanoconjugate showed a sustained release of drug over a period of time and also showed enzymatic responsiveness towards hyaluronidase. In vitro experiments were performed with HEK293, HeLa and HepG2 cells and it was observed that drug‐loaded nanoparticles were more toxic towards cancerous cells as compared with free TG. These results advocate that the reported system, being biocompatible, could be used as promising anticancer drug delivery system. © 2022 Society of Industrial Chemistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]