Drug-Inspired Design of Supramolecular Polymers for Enhanced Drug Loading and Sustained Therapeutic Release.

Abstract

Supramolecular polymeric hydrogels have emerged as a dynamic, versatile platform for localized therapeutic delivery, leveraging reversible and tunable noncovalent interactions. Despite their potential, designing supramolecular polymers that combine high drug loading with sustained, controlled release remains a considerable challenge. Here, we introduce a series of drug-inspired, peptide-based monomers engineered as supramolecular hydrogelators to facilitate high-affinity coassembly with therapeutic agents. By strategically utilizing electrostatic complexation and π-π stacking interactions, these hydrogelators self-assemble into robust supramolecular polymer networks with well-defined nanostructures, achieving nearly 100% fingolimod loading efficiency and extremely high loading capacity (up to approximately 32% by mass). Our results demonstrate that these tailored supramolecular interactions not only enhance the fingolimod drug loading efficiency and capacity, but also modulate the self-assembly and dissociation process, enabling prolonged and predictable drug release both <i>in vitro</i> and <i>in vivo</i>. We believe this work advances the field of supramolecular polymers by integrating drug-inspired molecular design principles and contributes to the development of advanced drug delivery systems with broader biomedical applications.