In vitro drug release

The in vitro drug release of nab paclitaxel was carried out in PBS containing 0.05% (W/V) Tween 20 and 0.05% (W/V) Tween 80 via a dialysis method. In brief, approximately 5mg of self-made nanoparticles or Abraxane was first suspended in 10mL of release media. Then, 3mL of the total was drawn out and put into dialysis bags (MWCO 8000–14000 Da, Beijing Henghui Co., Ltd., China), and these samples were finally immersed in 50mL of release medium under stirring at 37°C. The release medium was completely replaced with 50mL of fresh release media at predetermined times. The concentrations of paclitaxel in the release media were determined by HPLC [3, 23, 30]. For comparison, the release of paclitaxel from Taxol was also performed under the same conditions. All of the tests were performed in triplicate.