Design and Synthesis of Multifunctional Drug Carriers Based on Luminescent Rattle‐Type Mesoporous Silica Microspheres with a Thermosensitive Hydrogel as a Controlled Switch

Abstract

A novel approach for the fabrication of multifunctional microspheres integrating several advantages of mesoporous, luminescence, and temperature responses into one single entity is reported. First, the hollow mesoporous silica capsules are fabricated via a sacrificial template route. Then, Gd2O3:Eu3+ luminescent nanoparticles are incorporated into the internal cavities to form rattle‐type mesoporous silica nanocapsules by an incipient‐wetness impregnation method. Finally, the rattle‐type capsules serve as a nanoreactor for successfully filling temperature‐responsive hydrogel via photoinduced polymerization to form the multifunctional composite microspheres. The organic–inorganic hybrid microspheres show a red emission under UV irradiation due to the luminescent Gd2O3:Eu3+ core. The in vitro cytotoxicity tests show that the samples have good biocompatibility, which indicates that the nanocomposite could be a promising candidate for drug delivery. In addition, flow cytometry and confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) confirm that the sample can be effectively taken up by SKOV3 cells. For in vitro magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the sample shows the promising spin‐lattice relaxation time (T1) weighted effect and could potentially apply as a T1‐positive contrast agent. This composite drug delivery system (DDS) provides a positive temperature controlled “on‐off”drug release pattern and the drug, indomethacin (IMC), is released fast at 45 °C (on phase) and completely shut off at 20 °C (off phase). Meanwhile Gd2O3:Eu3+ plays an important role as the luminescent tag for tracking the drug loading and release process by the reversible luminescence quenching and recovery phenomenon. These results indicate that the obtained multifunctional composite has the potential to be used as a smart DDS for biomedical applications.

Lethal drug combination: Arsenic loaded multiple drug mesoporous silica for theranostic applications

“…To achieve targeted specificity, Liong et al [23] investigated folic acid and dye-doped magnetic MSNs nanocomposite for simultaneous drug delivery, magnetic resonance and fluorescence imaging of cancer cells. Lin Jun group similarly reported a series of mesoporous silica based multifunctional nanoparticles [24]. Despite these noticeable developments in MSNs theranostics, it has rarely been explored to concurrently deliver multiple drugs for combination chemotherapy.…”

Synthesis and characterisation of multifunctional alginate microspheres via thein situformation of ZnO quantum dots and the graft of 4-(1-pyrenyl) butyric acid to sodium alginate

“…Recently, they are also employed for the sustained release of drugs and for the delivery of cells and growth factors in tissue engineering (Buket Basmanav et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2009). Beneficial from tremendous progress in biotechnology, nanotechnology and biomaterials, microspheres with more and more functions can be designed and fabricated (Julián-López et al, 2007;Deng et al, 2010;Zhu et al, 2010;Kang et al, 2012). The research and application of multifunctional microspheres are becoming a hot issue in biomedical field.…”

Upconversion Nanoparticle-Based Nanocomposites

“…Yolk-shell nanostructures have a unique interstitial hollow space between the core and mesoporous shell and are attractive as the new generation drug delivery nanoplatform due to the greatly enhanced drug-loading capacity [62][63][64]. One of the most straightforward synthesis methodologies for yolk-shell nanostructures is the surface-protected etching method.…”