Fine-Tuning the Release Rate of paclitaxel-Bearing Supramolecular Filament Hydrogels

Filament hydrogels are three-dimensional supramolecular networks formed by self-assembly of molecular building units, namely hydrogelators. In this context, we report our recent progress in the utilization of anticancer drug paclitaxel (PTX) to design and synthesize drug-based hydrogelators. The resultant self-assembling filaments contain a 100% drug loading and can exert effective cytotoxicity against primary brain cancer cells derived from patients. By introducing oppositely charged amino acids to the peptidic segment of our amphiphilic molecule and through the incorporation of hydrophobic segments, we were able to modulate the disassembly kinetics of these supramolecular filaments upon dilutions, allowing for the fine-tuning of the PTX release rate simply through molecular engineering. Furthermore, our results demonstrated that small tweaks in molecular engineering produced numerous changes to both the self-assembly behavior and molecular toxicity. We believe that this drug-based hydrogel platform offers new opportunities for improved local treatment of cancer such as gliomas.