Thermal and photo dual-responsive core–shell polymeric nanocarriers with encapsulation of upconversion nanoparticles for controlled anticancer drug release

Abstract

A thermal and photo dual-responsive drug delivery system is newly designed for controlled anticancer drug delivery. The concept of this design is to encapsulate upconversion nanoparticles in a photoresponsive polymer to produce core–shell nanoparticles, in which NIR light is converted to UV/visible light to isomerize cross-linked bis(methacryloylamino)-azobenzene for the control of drug release. A facile scheme, which gives the details of two-step solvothermal treatment, microemulsion, distillation precipitation polymerization, and drug loading, is proposed to realize the design. The dual-responsive drug release behaviors of the system are reported to provide the information for potential development of cancer therapy. It is also found that the Baker–Lonsdale model is suitable for describing the drug release kinetics of this system and the values of the diffusion coefficient under various conditions are determined experimentally.