Dual-Responsive Alginate Hydrogels for Controlled Release of Therapeutics

In this work, with the drug oxytetracycline (OTC) released, cell cytotoxicity and antimicrobial studies of dual-responsive sodium alginate andN-Isopropylacrylamide hydrogels (SA/pNIPAAm) with enclosed OTC were investigated. The molecular OTC release was explored with different acid-base conditions and temperature conditions. In order to characterize cell cytotoxicity and antimicrobial efficacy, time-dependent OTC release analysis of different acid-base conditions was performed in SA/pNIPAAm hydrogels.[email protected]/pNIPAAm hydrogels showed excellent time-dependent antimicrobial efficacy, in which the IC50 values were 50.11 μg mL−1, 34.27 μg mL−1, and 22.39 μg mL−1among three consecutive days, respectively. Meanwhile, the human cells showed excellent viability at the IC50 dosage of[email protected]/pNIPAAm (50.11 μg mL−1).[email protected]/pNIPAAm performed in this study indicated that SA/pNIPAAm may serve as drug carriers for sustainable release at a specific concentration and for being employed as substrates for decreasing drug toxicity. Besides, pH-responsive and thermos-responsive SA/pNIPAAm may lead to the better selectivity of drug release in the ideal location or site. Finally, the results demonstrate that the designed, dual-responsive, biocompatible[email protected]/pNIPAAm hydrogels showed excellent antimicrobial efficacy and may potentially be found to have enormous applicability in the field of pharmaceutics.Keywords:pH-responsive;thermos-responsive;drug release;antimicrobial efficacy;drug carrier