DNA‐Hybrid‐Gated Multifunctional Mesoporous Silica Nanocarriers for Dual‐Targeted and MicroRNA‐Responsive Controlled Drug Delivery

Abstract

The design of an ideal drug delivery system with targeted recognition and zero premature release, especially controlled and specific release that is triggered by an exclusive endogenous stimulus, is a great challenge. A traceable and aptamer-targeted drug nanocarrier has now been developed; the nanocarrier was obtained by capping mesoporous silica-coated quantum dots with a programmable DNA hybrid, and the drug release was controlled by microRNA. Once the nanocarriers had been delivered into HeLa cells by aptamer-mediated recognition and endocytosis, the overexpressed endogenous miR-21 served as an exclusive key to unlock the nanocarriers by competitive hybridization with the DNA hybrid, which led to a sustained lethality of the HeLa cells. If microRNA that is exclusively expressed in specific pathological cell was screened, a combination of chemotherapy and gene therapy should pave the way for a targeted and personalized treatment of human diseases.

Tuning the architecture of polymeric conjugate to mediate intracellular delivery of pleiotropic curcumin

“…commercially available Doxil Ò and 51 Abraxane Ò . Since the blood circulation maintains a perfect sink con-52 dition, the premature drug release during the journey to the tumour 53 target is inevitable no matter how strong the avidity between the 54 API and the nanocarrier is [4,5]. This significantly contributes to 55 both physical side-effects and psychological harm to the patients.…”

Recent applications of the combination of mesoporous silica nanoparticles with nucleic acids: development of bioresponsive devices, carriers and sensors

“…In an elegant example reported by Min, Zhu and co-workers gene downregulation was firstly introduced in a device in which a mRNA was the release stimulus. 94 This proof-of-concept is of great importance because the transcription of drug-resistance proteins are mediated by those mRNAs and their disruption may lead to new ways of arresting cancer proliferation and resistance. In this models the authors employed the well-known miR-21: 5'-(UAG CUU AUC AGA CUG AUG UU GA)-3' as release stimulus.…”

Photoluminescent nanoplatforms in biomedical applications

“…The grafting of mesoporous silica shells has also been explored for the fabrication of photoluminescent theranostic nanoplatforms [158][159][160][161]. Its remarkably high surface area and tunable porous size enable the loading of therapeutic agents at higher levels compared with other carriers.…”