Hyaluronic Acid Nanohydrogels as a Useful Tool for BSAO Immobilization in the Treatment of Melanoma Cancer Cells

An alternative anticancer therapy based on the use of bovine serum amine oxidase (BSAO), an enzyme that converts polyamines over‐expressed in malignant cells, into hydrogen peroxide and aldehyde(s), thus inducing high cytotoxicity in cancer cells, was recently proposed. With the aim of improving the system efficacy by exploiting a nanotechnology approach, BSAO is covalently immobilized onto injectable nanohydrogels (NHs) based on cholesterol‐graft‐hyaluronic acid (HA‐CH), a biocompatible conjugate that spontaneously leads to self‐assembled structures in aqueous solutions. In this study, the physicochemical properties of the HA‐CH‐based NHs and the NHs cytocompatibility are reported. The properties of the NHs‐BSAO system are also studied in terms of protein residual activity, both in vitro and on a model melanoma cell line. Self‐assembling nanohydrogels based on cholesterol‐graft‐hyaluronic acid represent a good tool for the delivery of therapeutic proteins covalently immobilized by carbodiimide chemistry. Bovine serum amine oxidase, an enzyme that is able to produce antincancer species in situ, is successfully linked on nanohydrogels and tested in vitro on a model melanoma cell line.