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Updated: May 28, 2026

Preparation of Multifunctional Silk-Based Microcapsules Loaded with DNA Plasmids Encoding RNA Aptamers and Riboswitches
Published on: October 8, 2021
Design of a photoswitchable hollow microcapsular drug delivery system by using a supramolecular drug-loading approach
Wang Xiao1, Wei-Hai Chen, Jing Zhang
1Key Laboratory of Biomedical Polymers of Ministry of Education & Department of Chemistry, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
In this study, photoswitchable microcapsules were fabricated based on host-guest interactions between α-cyclodextrin (α-CD) and azobenzene (Azo). Carboxymethyl dextran-graft-α-CD (CMD-g-α-CD) and poly(acrylic acid) N-aminododecane p-azobenzeneaminosuccinic acid (PAA-C(12)-Azo) were assembled layer by layer on CaCO(3) particles. α-CD-rhodamine B (α-CD-RhB), used as a model drug, was loaded on PAA-C(12)-Azo layers by host-guest interaction. After removal of CaCO(3) particles by ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), hollow microcapsules loaded with α-CD-RhB were obtained. Since the interactions between α-CD and Azo were photosensitive, the capsules could be dissociated with the irradiation of UV light, followed by the release of the model drug, α-CD-RhB. Compared with traditional drug-loading approaches such as chemical bonding and physical adsorption, our supramolecular drug-loading system has a facile loading process, ideal bonding strength, and photoswitchable behavior. These photosensitive microcapsules exhibit great potential in biomedical applications.
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