Unambiguous and Controlled One-Pot Synthesis of Multifunctional Silica Nanoparticles

Abstract

Existing strategies for the synthesis of functional silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) rely on surface modifications followed by grafting of the organic moiety via chemoselective chemistry. Under these conditions, the introduction of several elements (e.g., ligands, drugs, fluorophores, vectors, etc.) on the same particle in a desired ratio and density is particularly difficult to achieve. We developed a method for obtaining in a single step well-defined tunable multifunctional fluorescent particles, presenting at their surface multiple ligands, covalently linked to their surface. Our strategy relies on the synthesis of hybrid bioorganic−inorganic peptide ligands, greatly simplifying the design of multifunctional nanoparticles. We demonstrated that it was possible to tune the ratio of two grafted ligands on the surface of the SiNPs simply by adjusting the relative concentration of hybrid species in the starting solution. An original fluorine nuclear magnetic resonance method was applied to the dissolved SiNPs to demonstrate our hypothesis.

Silica particles with a quercetin–R5 peptide conjugate are taken up into HT-29 cells and translocate into the nucleus

“…The fluorescein-labeled silane triethoxysilyl fluorescein was incorporated into SiPs at a ratio of 1 to 20 to the R5 peptide. 15 Similarly, a progressive uptake was observed that led to accumulation of the fluorescent SiPs in the cytoplasm of HT-29 cells after 3 h (Fig. 2C and D).…”

Functional mesoporous silica nanoparticles for bio‐imaging applications

“…In numerous studies, covalent conjugation of organic dyes with MSNs has been suggested as the simplest chemical approach to provide fluorescent imaging modality. The organic dyes can be conjugated either on the surface of mesopores (Ciccione et al, ; Heidegger et al, ; Pan, Liu, He, Wang, & Shi, ) or in the silica matrix (Ahn, Park, Singha, Park, & Kim, ; Huang et al, ; Liong et al, ; Lu, Liong, Li, Zink, & Tamanoi, ; Lu, Wu, Hung, & Mou, ; Slowing, Trewyn, & Lin, ). For the surface conjugation, the chemical modification of the intrinsic silanol groups on the mesopore surface provides an active reaction site for covalent conjugation of the dye molecules.…”

Inorganic polymerization: an attractive route to biocompatible hybrid hydrogels

“…125 The chemoselectivity of the sol-gel process was also exploited to propose a modular strategy leading to functional hybrid hydrogels (Class II.d, Figure 22) from a bis-silylated building block (e.g. PEG) used for the network establishment, and other alkoxysilane hybrid precursors 148 (e.g. silylated dyes, silylated integrin ligands for cell adhesion and silylated antibacterial peptides).…”