Construction and Efficacy of a Novel Treatment Against Acute Leukemia by Using Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles and Arsenic

This study aimed to use mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MNPs) as the carrier material, and connect non-toxic and non-immunogenic polyethylene glycol (PEG) and arsenic trioxide (AO) as a novel treatment of acute leukemia in vitro. Silica was synthesized by co-precipitationmethod. Based on this, a redox-responsive carrier (MNPs-PEG) was synthesized. The drug loading of AO-loaded modified silica (MNPs-AO) and MNPs-PEG/AO were verified by thermogravimetric analyzer. The dialysis bag method was used to investigate the in vitro drug release characteristics of the drug delivery system under different pH conditions. The MTT method was used to investigate the toxicity of the carrier and drug delivery system to human normal hemopoietic cells or human acute leukemia cells. Compared with normal cells, acute leukemia cell line was more sensitive to the toxicity of the carrier, and the cell viability of the MNPs-PEG group is greater than that of the MNPs group, indicating that PEG modification can further reduce the cell viability of the carrier. In addition, MTT results showed that the effect of MNPs-PEG/AO group on inhibiting the growth of acute leukemia cells was significantly higher than that of other groups. Overall, this nano-drug delivery system has a good application prospect in tumor therapy as a tumor microenvironment responsive carrier in acute leukemia.