Abstract

Porous nanosilica (PNS) has been attracting a growing attention in fabrication of carriers for drug delivery system (DDS). However, unmodified PNS-based nanocarriers exhibit the initial burst release of encapsulated bioactive molecules, which may limit their potential clinical applications. In this report, the surface of PNS was conjugated with gelatin-poly (ethylene glycol) methyl ether (GEL-mPEG) to form a core-shell structure PNS-GEL-mPEG for doxorubicin (DOX) delivery. The conjugated PNS carriers were found to be spherical in shape with diameter range of approximately 55-85 nm as compared with their parentally PNS (55-67 nm). The PNS-GEL-mPEG nanoparticles showed their ability to effectively encapsulate DOX for controlled release. In detail, DOX was efficiently loaded into the PNS-GEL-mPEG to form DOX-loaded nanocarriers (DOX@PNS-GEL-mPEG) with high loading efficiency (79.7%). The release of DOX from DOX@PNS-GEL-mPEG was prolonged and controlled up to 96 h in phosphate buffered saline (PBS, pH 7.4, 37 oC) without any initial burst release. These results demonstrated that this PNS-GEL-mPEG can be a potential candidate for controlled DDS with high loading capacity in cancer therapy