Synthesis of Fe3O4 modified mesoporous silica hybrid for pH-responsive drug delivery and magnetic hyperthermia applications

Abstract

The chemotherapy combined with thermotherapy is greatly considered in clinical applications for cancer treatment. The fabrication of nanomaterials with multifunctionality is an attractive approach to be utilized in cancer therapy. In this work, we report the synthesis of dopamine-urea organosilane (DPU) integrated mesoporous silica material in which the magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles were grown onto the outer surface of the mesoporous silica nanoparticles via Fe3O4-dopamine complexation method. The mesoporous structural characterization results revealed that the synthesized Fe3O4@DPU@MSH materials had high surface area (386 m2/g), large pore size (4.5 nm) and uniform particles in which the magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles were grown onto the outer surface of the mesopore walls with the particles size about 5–10 nm. Because of the existence of Fe3O4 nanoparticles onto the outer surface of the Fe3O4@DPU@MSH material, the sample shows superparamagnetic properties and high magnetic hyperthermia ability in the presence of applied magnetic field. Furthermore, owing to the presence of high surface area, the Fe3O4@DPU@MSH shows high drug loading capacity, and pH-responsive and temperature-accelerated drug release efficiency. In addition, the MTT assay analysis and the intracellular uptake study results support that the synthesized Fe3O4@DPU@MSH material is biocompatible. Therefore, the Fe3O4@DPU@MSH material would be a promising material for drug delivery and magnetic hyperthermia applications in cancer therapy.