Gelatin-poly (ethylene glycol) methyl ether-functionalized porous Nanosilica for efficient doxorubicin delivery

Porous nanosilica (PNS) has been receiving wider attention in the fabrication of nanocarriers for drug delivery. However, unmodified PNS nanoparticles have shown an initial rapid release of encapsulated drugs, which may limit their potential applications in the clinical setting. In this report, in order to improve the efficiency of drug delivery, PNS nanoparticles were first synthesized and then surface conjugated with gelatin-poly (ethylene glycol) methyl ether (GEL-mPEG) to form PNS-GEL-mPEG nanocarriers for doxorubicin (DOX) delivery. The co-polymer structure and morphology of the obtained nanocarriers were analyzed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS). The loading capacity, encapsulation efficiency and DOX release behavior of DOX@PNS-GEL-mPEG nanocarriers were also evaluated. Results showed that the conjugated PNS nanocarriers were spherical shape with an average diameter of 69.60 ± 3.27 nm, as compared to 58.93 ± 2.42 nm of PNS nanocarriers. Also, the PNS-GEL-mPEG nanoparticles showed their ability to effectively encapsulate DOX. In detail, DOX was significantly encapsulated into PNS-GEL-mPEG nanocarriers to form DOX@PNS-GEL-mPEG nanocarriers with high loading efficiency of 85.88 ± 0.15%. Moreover, the synthesized DOX@PNS-GEL-mPEG nanoparticles exhibited a sustainable release of DOX up to 96 h, without a burst release, as compared with less than 2 h from unconjugated PNS nanocarriers, and exhibited a pH-dependent drug release behavior of DOX in acidic media. These results indicated that DOX@PNS-GEL-mPEG nanocarriers have high potential applications for efficient DOX loading and release in cancer therapy.