Organic mesoporous silica with variable structures for pH-Stimulated antitumor drug delivery

Abstract

Hollow (hollow periodic mesoporous organosilica, HPMO), core-shell (mSiO2@PMO), and bowl (nanobowl periodic mesoporous organosilica, BPMO) organic mesoporous silica nanoparticles were produced in this work. According to adsorption and desorption studies, all three have large pore diameters (2–10 nm), high specific surfaces (567–726 m2g-1), and large pore volumes (0.4–1.4 cm3g-1). After transporting the antitumor pharmaceutical doxorubicin (DOX) and ZnO-controlled pH stimulation response modification, the obtained DOX@PMOs@ZnO has a high drug loading rate (17–37%, with the largest drug loading capacity up to 378 μg/mg). Cell uptake and apoptosis tests revealed that the three morphologies of DOX@PMOs@ZnO had high cellular uptake and inhibitory effects. These results showed that the DOX@PMOs@ZnO preparation may be beneficial for tumor-targeted therapy. More importantly, when three unique morphologies of DOX@PMOs@ZnO were analyzed in terms of drug loading, cell uptake, and apoptosis, the findings showed that the hollow structure of DOX@HPMO@ZnO and the bowl-like structure of DOX@BPMO@ZnO had more substantial impacts in all areas.