Synthesis and biological evaluation of surface-modified nanocellulose hydrogel loaded with paclitaxel

Hydrogel for various applications, such as cell encapsulation and controlled release of drugs, has attracted the field of biomaterials in the past decades. Specially, research on the surface-modified nanocellulose hydrogel has grown rapidly on account of the importance of target delivery in the anti-cancer therapy. In this work, surface-modified nanocellulose was mixed with hexadecyl amine as long chains to blend to build a network to produce hydrogel, which was successfully developed for controlled and targeted delivery of paclitaxel. The pH-stimuli surface-modified nanocellulose hydrogel was characterized and biological evaluated in vitro. The hydrogel was stable at pH 7.4 and paclitaxel was released by the shape change of hydrogel in an acidic environment (pH 5.5), and the sustained release of paclitaxel was observed at pH 5.5. The vitro cytotoxicity studies indicated that the drug accumulation and the inhibition of A549 and HepG2 cells was effectively increased by the surface-modified nanocellulose hydrogel as compared with free paclitaxel. The inhibitory effect of A549 cells was improved by nearly 30% as compared with free paclitaxel and the apoptosis rate was up to 90.5% after 12 h incubation. In addition, the inversion test and the results of a series of cell experiments in vitro demonstrated a good performance of the surface-modified nanocellulose hydrogel.