Shape-controlled hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles with multifunctional capping for in vitro cancer treatment

In the work, we prepare a series of multifunctional shape-controlled non-spherical hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSNs) drug carriers by employing Fe2O3 with four morphologies (capsule, cube, rice and rhombus) as sacrificial template and multifunctional cap as the encapsulating shell, respectively. The resulting shape-controlled non-spherical HMSNs perfectly replicate the origin morphology of Fe2O3 templates, possessing high specific surface area, good monodispersity, perpendicular mesoporous channel and excellent biocompatibility. After modification of polyethylene glycol (PEG) and folic acid (FA), the shape-controlled HMSNs core and functional shell then can be integrated into a single device (HMSNs-PEG-FA) to provide efficient and tumor cell selective drug delivery system. The shape-controlled HMSNs and HMSNs-PEG-FA all show the controlled pH-responsive release behavior for anti-cancer drug doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX). The in vitro results indicate that HMSNs-PEG-FA is biocompatible and selectively target to HeLa cells (over-expressed folate receptors). The fluorescence images results show that the desirable surface modification and non-spherical shape effectively facilitate cellular internalization of HMSNs. We expect that the construction of these unique nanomaterials with controlled morphology by the hard-templating technique may also provide useful information for design of nanoscale multifunctional systems.