Tuning H₂S Release by Controlling Mobility in a Micelle Core.

ABSTRACT: Drug delivery from polymer micelles has been widely studied, but methods to precisely tune rates of drug release from micelles are limited. Here, the mobility of hydrophobic micelle cores was varied to tune the rate at which a covalently bound drug was released. This concept was applied to cysteine-triggered release of hydrogen sulfide (H₂S), a signaling gas with therapeutic potential. In this system, thiol-triggered H₂S donor molecules were covalently linked to the hydrophobic blocks of self-assembled polymer amphiphiles. Because release of H₂S is triggered by cysteine, diffusion of cysteine into the hydrophobic micelle core was hypothesized to control the rate of release. We confirmed this hypothesis by carrying out release experiments from H₂S

SUBMITTER: Foster JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6660018 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature