Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026
Methods Development for Blood Borne Macrophage Carriage of Nanoformulated Antiretroviral Drugs
Published on: December 9, 2010
Nanocapsules based on mPEGylated artesunate prodrug and its cytotoxicity
Haijing Meng1, Ke Xu1, Yanyun Xu1
1Shanghai Engineering Research Center of Molecular Therapeutics and New Drug Development, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, PR China.
Abstract:
mPEGylated artesunate prodrug was synthesized via esterification between poly(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether (mPEG) and artesunate (ART). The product was inclined to form nanocapsules in aqueous media due to its amphiphilic nature. These nanocapsules showed narrow size distribution, with an average particle size of 88.7 nm measured by dynamic laser scattering (DLS). Their vesical morphology was further confirmed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). We found that the release of ART from the nanocapsules was controllable, which was contributed to the easily hydrolyzed property of the ester bond. In addition, the cytotoxicity of the prodrug against L1210 and MCF7 cell lines showed an essential decrease compared with the free ART. These results present a new strategy in designing anti-tumor ART nanocapsules for targeting tumor cells.
