A comparison of mesoporous silica nanoparticles and mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles as drug vehicles for cancer therapy

Abstract

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are promising drug carriers for use in cancer treatment owing to their excellent biocompatibility and drug-loading capacity. However, MSN's incomplete drug release and toxic bioaccumulation phenomena limit their clinical application. Recently, researchers have presented redox responsive mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles containing disulfide (S-S) bridges (ss-MONs). These nanoparticles retained their ability to undergo structural degradation and increased their local release activity when exposed to reducing agents. Disulfide-based mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles offer researchers a better option for loading chemotherapeutic drugs due to their effective biodegradability through the reduction of glutathione. Although the potential of ss-MONs in cancer theranostics has been studied, few researchers have systematically compared ss-MONs with MSNs with regard to endocytosis, drug release, cytotoxicity, and therapeutic effect. In this work, ss-MONs and MSNs with equal morphology and size were designed and used to payload doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) for liver cancer chemotherapy. The ss-MONs showed considerable degradability in the presence of glutathione and performed comparably to MSNs on biocompatibility measures, including cytotoxicity and endocytosis, as well as in drug-loading capacity. Notably, DOX-loaded ss-MONs exhibited higher intracellular drug release in cancer cells and better anticancer effects in comparison with DOX-loaded MSNs. Hence, the ss-MONs may be more desirable carriers for a highly efficient and safe treatment of cancer.

Antibacterial and biodegradable tissue nano-adhesives for rapid wound closure

“…In contrast, nano-adhesives exhibited slower degradation rate in pure SBF, further identifying their GSH-accelerating degradation behavior ex vitro and in vitro. 35 Moreover, Ag-MSNs showed similar manner of degradation as MSNs, indicating that nanosilver decoration has negligible influence on its degradability. It should be mentioned that this degradation test was done under static conditions, while in vivo settings were dynamic under the balance between oxidized (GSSG) and reduced GSH.…”

“…44,45 It is well known that disulfide bond can be specifically sensitive to the reducing microenvironment intracellularly, which endows fast degradability of disulfide-bridged MSNs. 34,35 The degradation profile of two nano-adhesives was studied in SBF containing 10 mM GSH to mimic intracellular and extracellular microenvironment. As shown in Figure 4C, both MSNs and Ag-MSNs showed overall faster and time-dependent degradation; they began to degrade into fragments in 48 hours ( Figure 4D and E).…”

“…27,[31][32][33] Moreover, direct incorporation of a disulfide bond into the framework of MSNs could facilitate their clinical translation as compared to traditional MSNs because of the fast and controllable biodegradation behavior. 34,35 With these findings in mind, we hypothesized that disulfide bond-bridged Ag-MSNs may be employed as an effective and safe tissue adhesive with antibacterial and degradable properties for wound closure and healing, which has never been reported yet.…”

Restriction of H1N1 influenza virus infection by selenium nanoparticles loaded with ribavirin via resisting caspase-3 apoptotic pathway

“…12 Mesoporous silica nanoparticles loaded with doxorubicin exhibit higher intracellular drug release in cancer cells. 13 Compared with these elements, selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) have their own characteristics against virus infection. First, selenium status may affect the function of cells of both innate and adaptive immunity.…”

Cancer cell membrane-modified biodegradable mesoporous silica nanocarriers for berberine therapy of liver cancer

“…[22][23][24] Compared with traditional inorganic mesoporous silica nanoparticles, mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles (MONs), with two or more alkoxysilanes, not only inherit the advantages of MSNs in preloading drugs but also achieve biodegradable properties, [25][26][27] which facilitate drug release and promote the in vivo metabolism of nanomaterials. 28,29 In our previous study, we designed MONs containing disulde bridges (ss-MONs) and utilized them in the preloading of the model drug doxorubicin. We provided a detailed comparison of ss-MONs with MSNs in terms of biocompatibility, drug loading capacity, drug release fashion and therapeutic efficacy and discovered better efficiency of ss-MONs in liver cancer treatment owing to the pH/glutathione-dual responsive drug release property.…”