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Factors affecting the stability of drug-loaded polymeric micelles and strategies for improvement

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Abstract

Polymeric micelles (PMs) self-assembled by amphiphilic block copolymers have been used as promising nanocarriers for tumor-targeted delivery due to their favorable properties, such as excellent biocompatibility, prolonged circulation time, favorable particle sizes (10–100 nm) to utilize enhanced permeability and retention effect and the possibility for functionalization. However, PMs can be easily destroyed due to dilution of body fluid and the absorption of proteins in system circulation, which may induce drug leakage from these micelles before reaching the target sites and compromise the therapeutic effect. This paper reviewed the factors that influence stability of micelles in terms of thermodynamics and kinetics consist of the critical micelle concentration of block copolymers, glass transition temperature of hydrophobic segments and polymer–polymer and polymer–cargo interaction. In addition, some effective strategies to improve the stability of micelles were also summarized.

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Acknowledgments

This study is financially supported by the National Science Foundation Grant of China (No. 81503005), the Natural Science Fundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20140669), and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions.

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  1. Department of Pharmaceutics, China Pharmaceutical University, 24 Tong Jia Xiang, Nanjing, 210009, People’s Republic of China

    Weisai Zhou, Caibin Li, Zhiyu Wang, Wenli Zhang & Jianping Liu

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Zhou, W., Li, C., Wang, Z. et al. Factors affecting the stability of drug-loaded polymeric micelles and strategies for improvement. J Nanopart Res 18, 275 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-016-3583-y

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