The properties of cholesterol-modified pullulan nanoparticles with different PEG coatings and their anti-hepatoblastoma cell effects

Hydrophobically modified amino-pullulan polymers (CHPNH2) were modified with polyethylene glycol (PEG) through the connective arms of succinic anhydride (SA) and cis aconite anhydride (CA) to form three polymers, namely, PCCN1, PCCN2 and PSCN, respectively. The structure of the polymer was identified by 1H NMR, and the degree of substitution (DS) values of hydrophobic groups were calculated. Three types of nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by the dialysis method, and the average particle sizes by dynamic light scattering (DLS) were 166.9 nm, 118.9 nm and 118.7 nm. The drug release experiment showed that the three drug-loaded nanoparticles all had a slow-release effect. The results of the MTT experiment showed that the cell survival rates of free cisplatin and the three types of drug-loaded nanoparticles were 42.30%, 40.17%, 37.53% and 53.34% after 48 h at the maximum drug concentration, indicating that PCCN1 nanoparticles have the strongest cytotoxicity. They also had the highest cell uptake rate in cell uptake experiments .