Cadete, AnaOlivera, AnaBesev, MagnusDhal, PradeepGonçalves, LídiaAlmeida, António J.Bastiat, GuillaumeBenoit, Jean-PierreFuente, María de laGarcía Fuentes, MarcosAlonso Fernández, María JoséTorres López, Dolores2020-04-132020-04-132019Cadete, A., Olivera, A., Besev, M. et al. Self-assembled hyaluronan nanocapsules for the intracellular delivery of anticancer drugs. Sci Rep 9, 11565 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-47995-8http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21340Preparation of sophisticated delivery systems for nanomedicine applications generally involve multi-step procedures using organic solvents. In this study, we have developed a simple self-assembling process to prepare docetaxel-loaded hyaluronic acid (HA) nanocapsules by using a self-emulsification process without the need of organic solvents, heat or high shear forces. These nanocapsules, which comprise an oily core and a shell consisting of an assembly of surfactants and hydrophobically modified HA, have a mean size of 130 nm, a zeta potential of −20 mV, and exhibit high docetaxel encapsulation efficiency. The nanocapsules exhibited an adequate stability in plasma. Furthermore, in vitro studies performed using A549 lung cancer cells, showed effective intracellular delivery of docetaxel. On the other hand, blank nanocapsules showed very low cytotoxicity. Overall, these results highlight the potential of self-emulsifying HA nanocapsules for intracellular drug delivery.eng© The Author(s) 2019. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Te images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Cell deliveryChemical modificationDrug deliveryNanoparticlesjournal article10.1038/s41598-019-47995-82045-2322open access