A binary solvent gel as drug delivery carrier

Abstract In this work, a novel drug delivery system was introduced based on binary solvent gel in which both hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs could be loaded into the gel without altering the gelation property of the native system. The gel was simply prepared from native β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) by crystallization-induced self-assembly. Physicochemical and mechanical properties of the gel were systematically investigated by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), optical and fluorescent microscope, rheological study, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and X- ray powder diffraction (XRD) etc. The mechanism of gel formation was proposed and verified. The delivery system exhibited a sustained drug release, regardless of hydrophilic drug DOX or hydrophobic drug 5-FU. In cell viability tests, DOX and 5-FU exhibited a synergetic anti-tumor effect. Furthermore, the cellular uptake of released DOX results revealed that the drug entrapped in the gel skeleton could be easily internalized into cells.