General and Facile Syntheses of Hybridized Deformable Hollow Mesoporous Organosilica Nanocapsules for Drug Delivery

Abstract Deformable materials have garnered widespread attention in biomedical applications. Herein, a controllable, general, and simple alkaline etching strategy was used to synthesize deformable hollow mesoporous organosilica nanocapsules (DMONs), in which multiple organic moieties were homogeneously incorporated into the framework. DMONs with double-, triple-, and even quadruple-hybridized frameworks were prepared by the selective introduction of organosilica precursors in accordance with the chemical homology principle through a surfactant-directed sol-gel procedure and a subsequent etching process in alkaline solution. The triple-hybridized DMONs possessed uniform and controllable diameters (100−330 nm), and large hollow cavities (50−270 nm). Liquid cell electron microscopy images demonstrated that the DMONs were deformable in solution. Elemental mapping images suggested that the organic components were homogeneous distribution within the entire DMONs framework. Statistical analysis of cell proliferation assays showed that breast cancer MCF-7 viability exceeded 85% when the cells are incubated with the triple-hybridized DMONs (800 μg mL–1) for 24 h. Histological assessments of main organs indicated no tissue injury or necrosis after intravenous injection of the DMONs 7 days (5 mg kg–1 body weight). Quantitative analysis indicated that the cellular uptake of the DMONs was 6-fold higher than that of their hard counterparts when the number of nanoparticles added was 1.25 × 104, and similar results were found for 4T1 cells. Furthermore, doxorubicin (DOX) loaded triple-hybridized DMONs with a loading efficiency of 16.9 wt%, produced a strong killing effect on tumor cells. Overall, DMONs with various incorporated organic functional groups could serve as novel nanoplatforms for drug delivery in biomedical applications.