Tailored Dual PEGylation of Inorganic Porous Nanocarriers for Extremely Long Blood Circulation in Vivo

Drug carrier systems based on mesoporous inorganic nanoparticles generally face the problem of fast clearance from bloodstream thus failing in passive and active targeting to cancer tissue. To address this problem, a specific dual PEGylation (DPEG) method for mesoporous silicon (PSi) was developed and studied in vitro and in vivo. The DPEG coating changed significantly the behavior of the nanoparticles in vivo, increasing the circulation half-life from 1 to 241 min. Furthermore, accumulation of the coated particles was mainly taking place in the spleen whereas uncoated nanoparticles were rapidly deposited in the liver. The protein coronas of the particles differed considerably from each other. The uncoated particles had substantially more proteins adsorbed including liver and immune active proteins, whereas the coated particles had proteins capable of suppressing cellular uptake. These reasons along with agglomeration observed in blood circulation were concluded to cause the differences in the behavior in vivo. The biofate of the particles was monitored with magnetic resonance imaging by incorporating superparamagnetic iron oxide nanocrystals inside the pores of the particles making dynamic imaging of the particles feasible. The results of the present study pave the way for further development of the porous inorganic delivery system in the sense of active targeting as the carriers can be easily chemically modified allowing also magnetically targeted delivery and diagnostics.