The Key Laboratory of Functional Molecular Solids, Anhui Laboratory of Molecular-Based Materials, Ministry of Education, Center for Nano Science and Technology, College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, China.
CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-Medical Diagnostics, Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Suzhou, China.
Chem Biol Drug Des. 2018 Aug;92(2):1435-1444. doi: 10.1111/cbdd.13309. Epub 2018 May 12.
Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are promising drug carriers for use in cancer treatment owing to their excellent biocompatibility and drug-loading capacity. However, MSN's incomplete drug release and toxic bioaccumulation phenomena limit their clinical application. Recently, researchers have presented redox responsive mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles containing disulfide (S-S) bridges (ss-MONs). These nanoparticles retained their ability to undergo structural degradation and increased their local release activity when exposed to reducing agents. Disulfide-based mesoporous organosilica nanoparticles offer researchers a better option for loading chemotherapeutic drugs due to their effective biodegradability through the reduction of glutathione. Although the potential of ss-MONs in cancer theranostics has been studied, few researchers have systematically compared ss-MONs with MSNs with regard to endocytosis, drug release, cytotoxicity, and therapeutic effect. In this work, ss-MONs and MSNs with equal morphology and size were designed and used to payload doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) for liver cancer chemotherapy. The ss-MONs showed considerable degradability in the presence of glutathione and performed comparably to MSNs on biocompatibility measures, including cytotoxicity and endocytosis, as well as in drug-loading capacity. Notably, DOX-loaded ss-MONs exhibited higher intracellular drug release in cancer cells and better anticancer effects in comparison with DOX-loaded MSNs. Hence, the ss-MONs may be more desirable carriers for a highly efficient and safe treatment of cancer.
介孔硅纳米颗粒（MSNs）由于其良好的生物相容性和载药能力，有望成为癌症治疗的药物载体。然而，MSN 不完全的药物释放和有毒的生物累积现象限制了其临床应用。最近，研究人员提出了含有二硫键（S-S）桥的氧化还原响应介孔有机硅纳米颗粒（ss-MONs）。这些纳米粒子在暴露于还原剂时保留了结构降解的能力，并增加了局部释放活性。基于二硫键的介孔有机硅纳米粒子由于谷胱甘肽还原作用的有效生物降解性，为研究人员提供了一种更好的载化疗药物的选择。尽管 ss-MONs 在癌症治疗中的应用潜力已经得到了研究，但很少有研究人员系统地比较了 ss-MONs 和 MSNs 在细胞内摄取、药物释放、细胞毒性和治疗效果方面的差异。在这项工作中，设计并使用具有相同形态和尺寸的 ss-MONs 和 MSNs 来负载盐酸多柔比星（DOX）用于肝癌化疗。ss-MONs 在谷胱甘肽存在下具有相当的降解性，在生物相容性方面，包括细胞毒性和细胞内摄取以及载药能力方面，与 MSNs 表现相当。值得注意的是，与负载 DOX 的 MSNs 相比，负载 DOX 的 ss-MONs 在癌细胞内表现出更高的细胞内药物释放和更好的抗癌效果。因此，ss-MONs 可能是高效和安全治疗癌症的更理想载体。
