pH-Responsive Biomaterials in Drug Delivery

Abstract

Biomaterials owing to their unbeatable biocompatibility, biodegradability, nontoxicity, and non-immunogenicity are the most preferable material to be used for drug delivery. Taking into account the action of the drug at nontargeted sites that leads to serious adverse effects especially in case of cancer therapy, targeted drug delivery has become the need of the hour. Different stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems are widely used to combat this problem among which pH-responsive drug delivery systems have proved themselves very reliable in reaching the milestone of target-specific drug delivery. Based on the difference in pH level at the diseased site (tumor, inflammation, infarct, and infection), and the difference between the different segments of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), pH-responsive drug delivery provides an efficient means for the desired therapy. This chapter explicitly provides a comprehensive account of the importance of pH at the organ, tissue, and cellular level for drug delivery, the type of biomaterials along with the chemical modifications needed to achieve the pH-dependent drug release, the mechanism of drug release, and their potential applications. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.