title: Hybrid responsive hydrogel carriers for oral delivery of low molecular weight therapeutic agents.
abstract: Hydrogels have been influential in the development of controlled release systems for a wide variety of therapeutic agents. These materials are attractive as carriers for transmucosal and intracellular drug delivery because of their inherent biocompatibility, tunable physicochemical properties, basic synthesis, and ability to be physiologically responsive. Due to their hydrophilic nature, hydrogel-based carrier systems are not always the best systems for delivery of small molecular weight, hydrophobic therapeutic agents. In this work, versatile hydrogel-based carriers composed of copolymers of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and acrylic acid (AA) were designed and synthesized to create formulations for oral delivery of small molecular weight therapeutic agents. Through practical material selection and careful design of copolymer composition and molecular architecture, we engineered systems capable of responding to physiological changes, with tunable physicochemical properties that are optimized to load, protect, and deliver their payloads to their intended site of action. The synthesized carriers' ability to respond to changes in pH, to load and release small molecular weight drugs, and biocompatibility were investigated. Our results suggest these hydrophilic networks have great potential for controlled delivery of small-molecular weight, hydrophobic and hydrophilic agents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272, USA ; Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Caldorera-Moore
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Maass
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, Louisiana Tech University, Ruston, LA 71272, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hegab
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fletcher
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; Division of Pharmaceutics, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA ; Institute for Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Regenerative Medicine, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Peppas
keywords: Oral delivery; Poly(acrylic acid); Poly(methacrylic acid); Responsive hydrogels; pH responsive delivery