Dual Targeting pH-Sensitive Co-Delivery Curcumin and β-Elemene Nanomedicine for Breast Cancer Therapy

In this paper, for the sake of improving the bioavailability and tumor targeting ability of curcumin (cur), we reported a nanoplatform self-assembled from Folic acid-Adipic dihydrazide-oligomeric hyaluronic acid (FA-ADH-oHA) as drug carrier, curcumin and β-elemene as loaded model drug for dual targeting to breast cancer cells. We used pH sensitive Folic acid-Adipic dihydrazide (FA-ADH) as hydrophobic moieties, HA as the target of cancer stem cells CD44 receptor. The structure characteristic of this smart multifunctional dual targeting nano-sized carrier was measured by ¹H-NMR. Cur, an anticancer drug, was successfully loaded into FA-ADH-oHA micelles by self-assembly with a hydrodynamic diameter of 216.4 ± 0.5 nm. Triggered by faintly acidic tumor microenvironment, more encapsulated curcumin and β-elemene could be released from the FA-ADH-oHA micelles in tumor environment than in the pH 7.3 environment. To sum up, the novel polymeric carrier based on pH sensitive and dual drug-targeting strategies was a prospective delivery platform to enhance therapeutic efficiency and decrease toxic side effect in breast cancer therapy.