Abstract
Nano anti-cancer drug carriers loaded with antineoplastic drugs can achieve targeted drug delivery, which enriches drugs at tumor sites and reduces the toxic side effects in normal tissues. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) are good nano drug carriers, as they have large specific surface areas, adjustable pore sizes, easily modifiable surfaces, and good biocompatibility. In this work, polyethyleneimine (PEI) grafted MSN were modified with folic acid (FA) as an active target molecule using chemical methods. The product was characterized by SEM, TEM, Zetasizer nano, FTIR, and an N2 adsorption and desorption test. MSN-PEI-FA are porous nano particles with an average particle size of approximately 100 nm. In addition, the loading rate and release behavior of MSN-PEI-FA were studied with curcumin as a model drug. The results show that when loading curcumin to MSN-PEI-FA at 7 mg and 0.1 g, respectively, the encapsulation efficiency was 90% and the cumulative release rate reached more than 50% within 120 h at pH = 5. This drug delivery system is suitable for loading fat-soluble antineoplastic drugs for sustained release and pH sensitive delivery.
Highlights
The traditional delivery route for antineoplastic agents is through intravenous administration
Where We is the amount of drug loaded in Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN)-PEI-folic acid (FA) and W0 is the amount of drug that was first added during the preparation procedure
This work demonstrates the successful modification of MSN through the grafting of PEI and FA
Summary
The traditional delivery route for antineoplastic agents is through intravenous administration. Compared with traditional drug carriers, such as polymer nanoparticles and liposomes, it showed higher flexibility, versatility, and stability [14] These previous studies indicated that MSN had a high loading rate and sustained release of anti-cancer drugs, such as doxorubicin, paclitaxel, and camptothecin [15,16]. FA-modified carrier materials loaded with anticancer drugs can bind to highly-expressed folic acid receptors on the surface of cancer cells, increasing the drug concentration at the tumor sites and reducing toxic side effects on normal cells. This makes FA a good candidate ligand in the field of cancer biotherapy, and one of the most popular targeting factors in drug targeting delivery systems [24]. The nano drug carrier MSN-PEI-FA was loaded with curcumin in order to provide a theoretical basis for efficient delivery of liposoluble antineoplastic drugs in the human body
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