Microspheres as therapeutic delivery agents: synthesis and biological evaluation of pH responsivenessElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available: DLS diagrams of size and zeta potential versusconcentration and time, diagrams of loading capacity and encapsulation efficiency, SEM pictures of PGMA seeds treated in simulated polymerization conditions and polar surface and size according to the minimum energy calculations using ChemBio3D. See DOI: 10.1039/c2tb00013j

A soft template method was used for the synthesis of pH-responsive microcontainers with an inner cavity. Poly(glycidyl methacrylate) (PGMA) microspheres of narrow size distribution were synthesized by soap-free radical emulsion polymerization and the coating of the microspheres was carried out by the same procedure. The procedure consists of two steps. In the first step the sacrificial template is synthesized and in the second step the shell is formed. Acrylic acid was used as a coating monomer, with the aim of introducing pH sensitivity in the synthesized microcontainers. A loading and release study of the anthracycline drug doxorubicin (DOX) was also carried out. The toxicity evaluation of the drug was carried out using the MTT assay, and the necrotic effect was studied using trypan blue.