Real-time electrochemical monitoring of drug release from therapeutic nanoparticles

Abstract

An electrochemical protocol for real-time monitoring of drug release kinetics from therapeutic nanoparticles (NPs) is described. The method is illustrated for repetitive square-wave voltammetric measurements of the reduction of doxorubicin released from liposomes at a glassy-carbon electrode. Such operation couples high sensitivity down to 20 nM doxorubicin with high speed and stability. It can thus monitor in real time the drug release from NP carriers, including continuous measurements in diluted serum. Such direct and continuous monitoring of the drug release kinetics from therapeutic NPs holds great promise for designing new drug delivery NPs with optimal drug release properties. These NPs can potentially be used to deliver many novel compounds such as marine-life derived drugs and hydrophobic drugs with limited water solubility that are usually difficult to be characterized by traditional analytical tools.