Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles: Drug Delivery Vehicles for Antidiabetic Molecules.

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are promising nanomaterials that are widely used in biomedical applications like drug delivery, diagnosis, bio-sensing and cell tracking. MSNs have been investigated meticulously in the drug-delivery field due to their unique chemical and pharmacokinetic properties, such as highly ordered mesopores, high surface area and pore volume, tuneable pore size, stability, surface functionalisation, and biocompatibility. MSN-based nanocomposites have been used to deliver therapeutic molecules like insulin, GLP-1, exenatide, DPP-4 inhibitor and plasmid-containing GLP-1 genes for managing diabetes mellitus for the last decade. The functionalisation properties of MSNs make them substantially capable of the co-delivery, controlled delivery and stimuli-responsive delivery of antidiabetic drugs. This review focuses on the delivery of antidiabetic therapeutics with special emphasis on the functionalisation of MSNs and stimuli-responsive delivery.