New Advances in In Vivo Applications of Gated Mesoporous Silica as Drug Delivery Nanocarriers

Abstract

One appealing concept in the field of hybrid materials is related to the design of gated materials. These materials are prepared in such a way that the release of chemical or biochemical species from voids of porous supports to a solution is triggered upon the application of external stimuli. Such gated materials are mainly composed of two subunits: i) a porous inorganic scaffold in which a cargo is stored, and ii) certain molecular or supramolecular entities, grafted onto the external surface, that can control mass transport from the interior of the pores. On the basis of this concept, a large number of examples are developed in the past ten years. A comprehensive overview of gated materials used in drug delivery applications in in vivo models from 2016 to date is thus given here.

Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles in Bioimaging

“…A great advantage of MSNs is the ability to introduce a desired functional group to a specific region within the particle, making the platform immensely versatile with wide ranging applications e.g., diagnostic imaging and sensing [ 55 , 56 ]. This chemical modification can be achieved by two main methods: post synthetic functionalisation and co-condensation.…”

Integrating gold nanoclusters, folic acid and reduced graphene oxide for nanosensing of glutathione based on “turn-off” fluorescence

“…GSH levels are found to be elevated in illness/cancers such as Alzheimer’s disease 8 as well as ovarian 9 , liver 3 , lung, colorectal, breast, head and neck cancer patients 10 . Reducing intracellular GSH has been proposed as one of the strategies of cancer treatment 11 , 12 . Hence, sensing of GSH in the biological samples for diagnosis of diseases is of great interest in biological applications.…”

Oligonucleotide-capped nanoporous anodic alumina biosensor as diagnostic tool for rapid and accurate detection of Candida auris in clinical samples

“…[11] When the support is loaded with an indicator and the modulation of its delivery is selectively triggered by a specific target, these materials become powerful sensing and diagnostic tools. [12][13][14][15] Nucleic acids (DNA, RNA or aptamers) are excellent examples of biomolecules able to act as molecular gates with extraordinary applications. [16][17][18] On that regard, several works combine the use of DNA with mesoporous supports to develop gated-nanodevices for applications in microorganism identification.…”