Fabrication of degradable lemon-like porous silica nanospheres for pH/redox-responsive drug release
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Xu Zhang; Liuqin Cao; Yanbao Zhao; Lei Sun
- Source
- Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical. 257:105-115
- Subject
- Chemistry
Kinetics
Metals and Alloys
02 engineering and technology
Conjugated system
010402 general chemistry
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
Condensed Matter Physics
01 natural sciences
Redox
0104 chemical sciences
Surfaces, Coatings and Films
Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
Nanopore
Chemical engineering
Specific surface area
Drug delivery
Materials Chemistry
Organic chemistry
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Nanocarriers
0210 nano-technology
Drug carrier
Instrumentation
- Language
- ISSN
- 0925-4005
In this work, pH/redox-responsive silica-based nanocarriers were constructed for drug delivery. Lemon-like porous silica (L-pSiO 2 ) sample presents uniform sphere with size of 160–180 nm and processes thiol-functionalized center-radial inner pores and amine-functionalized shell. Cystine (Cys) molecules were conjugated on the surface of L-pSiO 2 to seal the drug-loaded pores. To minimize the premature release, ZnO quantum dots (QDs) were further used to seal the nanopores of pSiO 2 NSs, which could act as gates and fluorescence probes. Both in vitro cellular cytotoxicity and hemolysis assay demonstrated that the L-pSiO 2 /Cys nanospheres (NSs) were highly biocompatible. The L-pSiO 2 /Cys NSs have high specific surface area (201 m 2 g −1 ) and large pore volume (0.426 cm 3 g −1 ) and are suitable to utilize as drug carriers. The DOX-loaded L-pSiO 2 /Cys NSs displayed more efficient cytotoxic to HepG2 cells than free DOX. Both L-pSiO 2 /Cys and L-pSiO 2 /Cys/ZnO carriers displayed low premature and pH/redox-responsive release. The DOX release from L-pSiO 2 /Cys followed the first-order kinetics model with high correlation coefficient. Interestingly, the L-pSiO 2 /Cys carrier displayed GSH-responsive degrading the inner core and pH-responsive dissolving silica shell at physiological environment.