Abstract
In the past decade, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) with a large surface area and pore volume have attracted considerable attention for their application in drug delivery and biomedicine. Here we propose biosilica from diatoms as an alternative source of mesoporous materials in the field of multifunctional supports for cell growth: the biosilica surfaces were chemically modified by traditional silanization methods resulting in diatom silica microparticles functionalized with 3-mercaptopropyl-trimethoxysilane (MPTMS) and 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane (APTES). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses revealed that the –SH or –NH2 were successfully grafted onto the biosilica surface. The relationship among the type of functional groups and the cell viability was established as well as the interaction of the cells with the nanoporosity of frustules. These results show that diatom microparticles are promising natural biomaterials suitable for cell growth, and that the surfaces, owing to the mercapto groups, exhibit good biocompatibility.
Highlights
Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are considered to be the most promising candidates for designing highly robust and tunable substrates for biomedical applications
The morphology of these mesoporous biosilica materials was examined by SEM analyses showing distinct and separated diatom frustules without aggregations and the absence of detrimental effects onto the pore surface due to the cleaning treatments (Figure 1)
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Summary
Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are considered to be the most promising candidates for designing highly robust and tunable substrates for biomedical applications. Their biocompatibility, the high surface area-to-volume ratio, the possibility of an easy introduction of various organic functional groups (either through covalent bonding or electrostatic interactions), provide a remarkable level of versatility for these materials [1,2,3,4,5]. The most outstanding example are diatoms, single-cell photosynthetic algae, with distinct silica cell walls called frustules, consisting of highly ordered pore structures, species characteristic patterns and hierarchical pore organization with unique mechanical, molecular transport, optical and photonic properties [7,8]. The biosilica of diatoms has currently found attractive applications in optics [9], photonics [10], sensing [11], biosensing [12], filtration [13], microfabrications [14,15], protein separation [16], catalyses [17] and drug delivery [18,19]
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