Abstract
In cancer treatment, the safe delivery of the drug to the target tissue is an important task. 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), the well-known anticancer drug, was encapsulated into the pores of unmodified mesoporous silica SBA-15, as well as silica modified with 3-aminopropyl and cyclohexyl groups. The drug release studies were performed in two different media, in a simulated gastric fluid (pH = 2) and in a simulated body fluid (pH = 7) by RP-UHPLC. The simple and rapid RP-UHPLC method for quantitative determination of 5-fluorouracil released from unmodified and modified mesoporous silica SBA-15 was established on ODS Hypersil C18 column (150 × 4.6 mm, 5 µm) eluted with mobile phase consisted of methanol: phosphate buffer in volume ratio of 3:97 (v/v). Separation was achieved by isocratic elution. The flow rate was kept at 1 mL/min, the injection volume was set at 20 µL and the column oven temperature was maintained at 25 °C. The effluent was monitored at 268 nm. This paper provides information about the quantitative determination of the released 5-FU from silica. It was found out that larger amount of the drug was released in neutral pH in comparison with the acidic medium. In addition, surface functionalisation of silica SBA-15 influences the release properties of the drug.
Highlights
Over the past three decades, there has been rapid growth in the area of silica-based ordered mesoporous materials as drug delivery systems owing to the great versatility and stability of these mesoporous matrices
MCM-41, MCM-48 and SBA-15 are the most common mesoporous silica materials with the pore size ranging from 2–10 nm and 2D-hexagonal and 3D-cubic structural characteristics [1]
Isotherms are characterized by the presence of hysteresis loops. They are classified as IVb isotherms type. This type of isotherms is characteristic of mesoporous materials with 2D structure as SBA-15 [45]
Summary
Over the past three decades, there has been rapid growth in the area of silica-based ordered mesoporous materials as drug delivery systems owing to the great versatility and stability of these mesoporous matrices. MCM-41, MCM-48 and SBA-15 are the most common mesoporous silica materials with the pore size ranging from 2–10 nm and 2D-hexagonal and 3D-cubic structural characteristics [1]. The high surface area, tunable pore diameter, good biocompatibility/biodegradation [2,3] and uniform mesoporous structure of the mesoporous silicas allow the adsorption of drugs and biomolecules into their mesostructures to be locally released. The use of silica-based ordered mesoporous materials as drug delivery systems was carried out for the first time in 2001. The first to describe the use of mesoporous silica as drug delivery
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