Nanogels are a central class of biomaterials widely used in the field of drug delivery for the treatment of different pathologies such as tumors, cardiovascular diseases or central nervous system disorders. The great peculiarity of these systems is that, if properly surface functionalized, they are able to target specific body tissues and exploit precise targeted drug delivery. Anyway, the presence of a surface layer on the nanoparticle core can affect not only the biological behavior of the whole system but also its physical and drug delivery properties. In this work we investigated how the presence of different surface functionalization strategies on the same PEG-PEI nanogel framework influences the aforementioned peculiarities. The nanogels were functionalized with amine and pyridinic groups, while the properties analyzed and compared were the hydrodynamic diameter, the ζ-potential and the drug release ability. Moreover, we performed the evaluation of the cytocompatibility of the final nano-carrier and a molecular analysis of the surface features of these systems at microscopic level.

纳米凝胶是生物材料的中心类别，广泛用于药物输送领域，用于治疗不同的疾病，例如肿瘤，心血管疾病或中枢神经系统疾病。这些系统的独特之处在于，如果将它们适当地表面功能化，它们就能靶向特定的身体组织并利用精确的靶向药物递送。无论如何，纳米颗粒核上表面层的存在不仅会影响整个系统的生物学行为，而且会影响其物理和药物传递特性。在这项工作中，我们调查了在同一PEG-PEI纳米凝胶框架上不同表面功能化策略的存在如何影响上述特性。纳米凝胶被胺和吡啶基官能化，分析和比较的性质是流体动力学直径，ζ电位和药物释放能力。此外，我们在微观水平上评估了最终纳米载体的细胞相容性，并对这些系统的表面特征进行了分子分析。