Silver-Coated Colloidosomes as Carriers for an Anticancer Drug.

Abstract

Small drug molecules are widely developed and used in the pharmaceutical industry. In the past few years, loading and delivering such molecules using polymer shell colloidosomes has attracted interest. Traditional polymer capsules fail to encapsulate low molecular weight materials for long times, since they are inherently porous and permeable for small molecules. In this paper, we report a method for encapsulating an anticancer drug with small molecule weight, for cell viability tests. The silver coated colloidosomes are prepared by making an aqueous core capsule with a polymer shell and then adding AgNO3, surfactant and L-ascorbic acid to form a second shell. The capsules are impermeable and can be triggered using ultrasound. We propose to use the capsules as drug carriers. The silver demonstrates a low cytotoxicity for up to ten capsules/cell. After triggering the silver shells by ultrasound, the released doxorubicin, the broken silver fragments, and the doxorubicin loading on the capsule surface all kill cells. The results demonstrate a non-permeable silver shell microcapsule with ultrasound sensitivity for potential medical applications.