pH-responsive mesoporous silica drug delivery system for targeted cancer chemotherapy

In this paper, a kind of pH-responsive mesoporous silica targeted drug delivery system (DOX-loaded N-CQDs/HA gated pSiO(2)/MPEG-Glu) was designed and synthesised. In this system, active mesoporous silica (pSiO(2)) worked as a carrier material, methoxy polyethene glycol amine (MPEG) and L-glutamic acid (Glu) can be coupled and grafted to the surface of the pSiO(2) drug carrier to improve the stability of the drug delivery system, nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (N-CQDs) and hyaluronic acid (HA) can inhibit the rapid release of drug. Ultraviolet (UV-Vis) spectrum showed that the drug-loading rate of DOX is 8.9%, the drug release in vitro study suggested that the prepared silica drug delivery system had significant pH-responsive and targeted DOX release, the drug release rate is 55.7% at pH = 5.0, which was much higher than the release of pH = 7.4; CLSM and MTT showed that the drug delivery system can enter into cancer cells through endocytosis and the DOX can act on cell nucleus, exhibiting a targeted therapy on cancer cells.

Automated summary

A pH-responsive mesoporous silica targeted drug delivery system was designed and synthesized in this study, showing significant drug release stability and targeted therapy on cancer cells. Results demonstrated that the system had a higher drug release rate under acidic conditions and could effectively target and treat cancer cells through in vitro experiments using CLSM and MTT assays.