pH-sensitive polymeric nanocarriers for enhanced intracellular drug delivery

Most of the conventional dosage forms are associated with severe adverse effects and do not produce satisfactory therapeutic response due to nonspecificity, uncontrolled release, and multidrug resistance issues. Therefore, novel drug delivery systems are focused on the development of stimuli-responsive biomaterials exploiting the variation in microenvironment of normal and diseased tissues. pH-responsive nanocarriers are gaining huge attention among scientific fraternity which facilitate stimuli-responsive release of loaded cargos. Various polymeric materials could be easily conjugated to bioactives with acid-labile bonds or could be employed to form polymeric micelles/nanogels for achieving smart drug release at targeted site. Release from these nanocarriers is triggered within extracellular/intracellular environment of diseased tissues due to pH changes observed within these compartments. Research outcomes from ongoing studies exploiting this strategy have shown fruitful results in the diagnosis/treatment of various deadly diseases such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cancer, etc. Thus, these novel systems could act as promising delivery vehicle for facilitating enhanced cellular internalization, delivery of bioactives at targeted site, and could also overcome multidrug resistance issues. This chapter summarizes the various advancements in strategies employed for the development of such smart nanocarriers along with their biomedical applications. Various challenges faced by this nanoplatform in its clinical translation will also be discussed.