Self-assembled Dendritic Boronate Micelles as a Promising Delivery Strategy for Gemcitabine

A novel drug delivery system is described based on a PEG-dendritic copolymer functionalized with peripheral boronic acids, that self-assembles in the presence of catechol to afford nanometric micelles with the ability to encapsulate GEM. The simplicity of the method, with all equilibria (boronate esterification, copolymer self-assemble, drug encapsulation) occurring simultaneously, is compatible with a high tunability of the micelle properties (via diol structure and the boronic acid-to-diol molar ratio).