Facile preparation of pH-sensitive and self-fluorescent mesoporous silica nanoparticles modified with PAMAM dendrimers for label-free imaging and drug delivery

A facile method is described to prepare pH-sensitive and self-fluorescent drug delivery systems using mesoporous silica nanoparticles and PAMAM dendrimers, providing a general route to develop multifunctional and biocompatible platforms, which integrated increasing the number of reaction sites, retaining drug molecules, controlling drug delivery behaviour and fluorescent imaging into one carrier system, for biomedical imaging diagnosis and simultaneous therapy for lesion sites such as cancers. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.