Stimulus-responsive starch-based nanocapsules for targeted delivery and antibacterial applications

Polysaccharide materials have attracted a widespread interest in the biomedical materials field due to their non-toxic, biocompatible and biodegradable properties. In this research, starch was modified with chloroacetic acid, folic acid (FA) and thioglycolic acid and then starch-based nanocapsules loaded with curcumin (FA-RSNCs@CUR) were prepared by the convenient oxidation method. The nanocapsules were prepared with stable particle size distribution of 100 nm. In the drug release test simulating the tumor microenvironment in vitro , the cumulative CUR release rate at 12 h was 85.18 %. Due to FA and FA receptor mediation, it only took 4 h for FA-RSNCs@CUR to achieve internalization by HeLa cells. In addition, cytotoxicity confirmed that starch-based nanocapsules have good biocompatibility as well as protection of normal cells in vitro . And FA-RSNCs@CUR showed certain antibacterial properties in vitro . Therefore, FA-RSNCs@CUR has good potential for future applications in food preservation and wound dressing, and so on.