Molecular design and synthesis of self-assembling camptothecin drug amphiphiles.

ABSTRACT: The conjugation of small molecular hydrophobic anticancer drugs onto a short peptide with overall hydrophilicity to create self-assembling drug amphiphiles offers a new prodrug strategy, producing well-defined, discrete nanostructures with a high and quantitative drug loading. Here we show the detailed synthesis procedure and how the molecular structure can influence the synthesis of the self-assembling prodrugs and the physicochemical properties of their assemblies. A series of camptothecin-based drug amphiphiles were synthesized via combined solid- and solution-phase synthetic techniques, and the physicochemical properties of their self-assembled nanostructures were probed using a number of imaging and spectroscopic techniques. We found that the number of incorporated drug molecules stro

SUBMITTER: Cheetham AG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5520181 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature