A pH stimuli thiol modified mesoporous silica nanoparticles: Doxorubicin carrier for cancer therapy

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) have been attracted in the field of biomedicine due to their versatile properties as a drug nanocarrier. In this research, MSN and thiol modified MSN (mMSN) were synthesized to be the drug nanocarriers, by the sol–gel technique for the efficient delivering doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX). These carriers were characterized by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), SA3100 analyzer (Brunauer–Emmett–Teller), Zetasizer and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). FESEM observation revealed that these particles have uniform sizes and the zeta potential analysis confirmed the existence of surface charge and stability of the particles. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller showed that MSN and mMSN are characteristic type IV N2 adsorption/desorption patterns. The in vitro drug release profile studies have profound that the drug-loaded carriers were pH dependent and the drug-loaded mMSN (DOX@mMSN) displayed a faster drug release at the acidic pH with tumor cells than the pH with normal cells. Cell cycle arrest and ROS generation were analyzed by Fluorescence-activated cell sorting. Assay on the cytotoxicity against the HeLa cells showed a better antitumor effect with DOX@mMSN compared to DOX@MSN. This study attested that pH-responsive thiol modified drug nanocarrier can have the potential cancer therapy.