Folic acid-modified mesoporous silica nanoparticles for cellular and nuclear targeted drug delivery.

Site-specific stimuli responsive nanomaterials are an important breakthrough for the improvement of modern therapies in nanomedicine. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles are good candidate for the development of targeted delivery system as their surface can be easily modified with functional groups in order to achieve controlled and specific release. We designed a drug delivery system based on mesoporous silica nanoparticles modified with folic acid as a specific targeting moiety. The functionalization forms a nanovalve system in which the surface is modified with an aliphatic chain. This stalk tethers a cyclodextrin with the specific role to prevent undesired release of the cargo. To avoid any movement of the cyclodextrin the folic acid is placed at the end of the chain. The release kinetics were investigated with UV/VIS spectroscopy and cellular uptake was extensively studied using flow cytometry. Through this study we demonstrated the biocompatibility of folic acid modified MSNs and the effective release of an encapsulated anticancer drug using TUNEL and Western Blot assays. Chapter 3: Folic Acid Modified Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles for Cellular and Nuclear Targeted Drug Delivery