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Updated: Oct 7, 2025

Preparation and Characterization of Lipophilic Doxorubicin Pro-drug Micelles
Published on: August 2, 2016
Flexible Organic Framework-Based Anthracycline Prodrugs for Enhanced Tumor Growth Inhibition
Zi-Yue Xu1, Hong-Kun Liu1, Yan Wu1
1Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.
Abstract:
A water-soluble flexible organic framework FOF-hz of low cytotoxicity has been synthesized from a pyridinium-derived tetracationic tetraaldehyde and a citric acid-derived tritopic acylhydrazine (1:2) through the formation of a hydrazone bond. Dynamic light-scattering experiments reveal that FOF-hz has a hydrodynamic diameter of 79 nm at 0.1 mM concentration of the tetrahedral precursor. Dialysis experiments show that the free acylhydrazine units of FOF-hz can react with the C-13 ketone units of anthracycle drugs, including doxorubicin (DOX), daunorubicin, epirubicin, and pirarubicin, at pH = 3.0 to conjugate the drugs in 78-85% yields. The resulting FOF-prodrugs exhibit remarkable acid-responsive deconjugation of the conjugated active agents. Laser confocal scanning microscopy and flow cytometric analysis support that FOF-hz displays enhanced permeability and retention effect, which helps to overcome the multidrug resistance of MCF-7/ADR tumor cells and leads to enhanced cytotoxicity for MCF-7/ADR cells. In vivo studies reveal a considerable improvement of the efficacy of the prodrug FOF-DOX for the inhibition of the growth of the MCF-7/ADR tumor.
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