A Novel Microbubble Capable of Ultrasound-Triggered Release of Drug-Loaded Nanoparticles

Drug-loaded microbubbles have shown attractive potential in disease treatment applications. The present work presents a unique ultrasound (US)-triggered system in which drug-loaded nanoparticles and perfluorocarbon gas are encapsulated within the internal space of microbubbles. The prepared curcumin-loaded albumin nanoparticle payload microbubbles (CcmANP-MB) exhibited a mean diameter of 4895.1 nm ± 421.2 nm and a drug-loading efficiency of 2.23% ± 0.08% (297% increase compared with the drug loading of common drug-loaded microbubbles). US allowed the release of the internal payload. In vitro US-triggered drug release experiments showed that the drug release of CcmANP-MB was delayed by lipid membranes and significantly increased after sonication. In vitro and in vivo US imaging experiments demonstrated that CcmANP-MB evidently enhances US imaging, which indicates that the microbubbles possess good acoustic properties even after encapsulation of nanoparticles. Tumor bearing mice were administered with CcmANP-MB through the tail vein and were then exposed to ultrasound, which resulted in an enhanced drug accumulation in tumor tissues and a significant increase in tumor growth inhibition rate (57.1%) compared with CcmANP-MB alone (28.8%) as well as curcumin-loaded albumin nanoparticle (26.2%). Therefore, the combination of lecithin microbubbles and albumin nanoparticles provides a platform for targeted drug delivery in clinical therapy and disease diagnosis.