Jittima Amie LuckanagulPahweenvaj Ratnatilaka Na BhuketChawanphat MuangnoiPranee RojsitthisakQian WangPornchai RojsitthisakMetallurgy and Materials Research Institute Chulalongkorn UniversityChulalongkorn UniversityUniversity of South CarolinaMahidol University2022-08-042022-08-042021-01-02Polymers. Vol.13, No.2 (2021), 1-14207343602-s2.0-85099152835https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/20.500.14594/76623A hyaluronic acid-grafted poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (HA-pNIPAM) was synthesized as a polymeric nanogel platform for encapsulation and delivery of hydrophobic bioactive compounds using curcumin as a model drug. As demonstrated by transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering techniques, the HA-pNIPAM was simply assembled into spherical nano-sized particles with the thermoresponsive behavior. The success of curcumin aqueous solubi-lization was confirmed by fluorescent spectroscopy. The resulting nanogel formulation enhanced the aqueous solubility and uptake into NIH-3T3 cells of curcumin. This nanogel formulation also demon-strates cytocompatibility against NIH-3T3 cells, which deems it safe as a delivery vehicle. Moreover, the formulation has a slight skin-protection effect using an artificial skin equivalence model. The curcumin-loaded HA-pNIPAM nanogel showed an anti-proliferative activity against MDA-MB-231, Caco-2, HepG2, HT-29, and TNF-α-induced hyperproliferation of keratinocyte (HaCaT) cells. The thermoresponsive HA-pNIPAM nanogel reported here could be further optimized as a platform for controlled-release systems to encapsulate pharmaceuticals for therapeutic applications.Mahidol UniversityChemistryMaterials ScienceArticleSCOPUS10.3390/polym13020194