Biodegradable Polymersomes for the Delivery of Gemcitabine to Panc-1 Cells.
Abstract
Traditional anticancer chemotherapy often displays toxic side effects, poor bioavailability,
and a low therapeutic index. Targeting and controlled release of a chemotherapeutic
agent can increase drug bioavailability, mitigate undesirable side effects, and increase
the therapeutic index. Here we report a polymersome-based system to deliver gemcitabine
to Panc-1 cells in vitro. The polymersomes were self-assembled from a biocompatible
and completely biodegradable polymer, poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(caprolactone), PEO-PCL.
We showed that we can encapsulate gemcitabine within stable 200 nm vesicles with a
10% loading efficiency. These vesicles displayed a controlled release of gemcitabine
with 60% release after 2 days at physiological pH. Upon treatment of Panc-1 cells
in vitro, vesicles were internalized as verified with fluorescently labeled polymersomes.
Clonogenic assays to determine cell survival were performed by treating Panc-1 cells
with varying concentrations of unencapsulated gemcitabine (FreeGem) and polymersome-encapsulated
gemcitabine (PolyGem) for 48 hours. 1 μM PolyGem was equivalent in tumor cell toxicity
to 1 μM FreeGem, with a one log cell kill observed. These studies suggest that further
investigation on polymersome-based drug formulations is warranted for chemotherapy
of pancreatic cancer.
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13734Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1155/2013/932797Publication Info
Sood, Nimil; Jenkins, Walter T; Yang, Xiang-Yang; Shah, Nikesh N; Katz, Joshua S;
Koch, Cameron J; ... Evans, Sydney M (2017). Biodegradable Polymersomes for the Delivery of Gemcitabine to Panc-1 Cells. J Pharm (Cairo), 2013. 10.1155/2013/932797. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13734.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Michael J. Therien
William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
Our research involves the synthesis of compounds, supramolecular assemblies, nano-scale
objects, and electronic materials with unusual ground-and excited-state characteristics,
and interrogating these structures using state-of-the-art transient optical, spectroscopic,
photophysical, and electrochemical methods. Over chemical dimensions that span molecules
to materials, we probe experimental and theoretical aspects of charge migration reactions
and ultrafast electron transfer processes. Insights

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