ENGINEERED NANOGELS FOR BIOLOGICAL DRUGS TRANSPORT

Nowadays the nanocarrier strategy, aimed to rebuild the tumor therapy approach in a winning way, is growing very fast. This is in the direction to engender nanocarriers having synergistic action by the “biological drugs” transported, the capability to recognize specific targets and the molecular architecture that allows them to perform at the best their therapeutic functions. We are building engineered nanocarriers having different functions (control cell cycle, induce apoptosis, etc.) as well as the capability to recognize specific targets (tumor cells, angiogenic and/or sprouting endothelial cells); moreover, they must have also the ability to escape the host immunosystem, such that not to be toxic to healthy cells. At the present, poly(N-vinyl pyrrolidone) [PVP] nanogels with narrow-size distribution have been produced by applying an inverse microemulsion polymerisation procedure, starting from vinyl pyrrolidone (VP) and methyl-bis-acrylamide (MBA). Nanogels have been formed through a free-radical chemical polymerisation occurring inside the water micelles suspended into an oil phase by the recourse to a surfactant. The generated nanogels, marked by the inclusion “in situ” of FITC-Dextran or by direct copolymerisation with fluorescein O,O’-diacrylate, after purification were evaluated for their capability to interact with plasma membrane structures or to penetrate with time into the cultured cells by applying confocal microscopy analysis. Moreover, they were tested for their ability to induce apoptotic and/or necrotic processes to “in vitro” treated cells.