BSA modified, disulfide-bridged mesoporous silica with low biotoxicity for dual-responsive drug delivery

Siliceous materials based intelligent drug delivery systems (DDS) have attracted numerous attentions. Unfortunately, their intrinsic biologic inertia and non-degradability are critical issues need to be addressed because it hampers further clinical translation application. Herein, disulfide-bridged mesoporous silica nanoparticles (designed as mSiO(2)(s-s)) have been synthesized through nucleophilic substitution reaction, which have biodegradability in simulative tumor reducing conditions. Furthermore, folic acid (FA) decorated bull serum albumin (BSA) has been modified onto the surface of mSiO(2)(s-s) to improve tissue biocompatibility, prevent anticancer drugs leakage and endow effective targeting capacity. Therefore, the nanoparticles present good biodegradability, tissue biocompatibility, tumor cell targeting capacity and pH/glutathione (GSH) dual-responsive drug release capacity. This novel drug nanocarrier possesses biosafety and effective anti-cancer strategy, provides significant promising in future biomedical application.