Mesoporous silica gated mixed micelle for the targeted co-delivery of doxorubicin and paclitaxel

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide. A nano-drug delivery system (DDS) was fabricated by cooperating with two drug carriers (mesoporous silica nanoparticles and mixed micelles), providing a suitable method for designing stimuli-responsive drug delivery systems. The system is developed using paclitaxel (PTX) loaded mixed micelle as gating agents and doxorubicin (DOX) loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles via Schiff base. Because of the pH-sensitive Schiff base, the gating micelles can achieve drug release under the acidic condition at pH = 5.5. In the present DDS, the Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) peptide was utilized to target the specific cancer cell. The DDS shows 81.0% PTX and 65.0% DOX release after 72 h. The DDS was characterized well by FT-IR, UV-VIS, FE-SEM, BET, 1H NMR, and DLS. The newly formulated DDS was also examined by apoptosis to assess its pharmaceutical field application. The study results suggested that developed DDS serves as a potential device for targeted delivery and controlled release of DOX & PTX for cancer treatment.

Automated summary

This article introduces a nano-drug delivery system for the treatment of breast cancer, which uses two drug carriers (mesoporous silica nanoparticles and mixed micelles) to design a suitable stimuli-responsive drug delivery system. The system uses paclitaxel loaded mixed micelle as gating agents and doxorubicin loaded mesoporous silica nanoparticles via Schiff base. The gating micelles can achieve drug release under acidic conditions due to the pH-sensitive Schiff base. The system also utilizes the Arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (RGD) peptide to target specific cancer cells. The study results show that this new drug delivery system has potential for targeted delivery and controlled release of doxorubicin and paclitaxel for cancer treatment.