Sialic acid-imprinted mesoporous nanocarriers for tumor cell targeted drug delivery

Herein, a drug nanocarrier capable of recognizing sialic acid (SA) was prepared by grafting SA-imprinted hydrogel layer on mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs). On cancer cells, the terminal of glycoproteins and lipids on cell membrane usually overexpression of SA, thus SA-imprinted mesoporous nanocarriers (SIMNs) may show cancer selectivity and targeted drug delivery. In this study, a typical therapeutic drug doxorubicin (DOX) was filled into the mesoporous channels of SIMNs to obtain a DOX-loaded nanomaterial ([email protected]). Human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG-2) were selected to demonstrated the tumor targeted drug delivery of [email protected] We verified that the combination of mesoporous nanocarriers with SA recognition sites gives our [email protected] the ability to target SA-overexpressed cancer cells and enhance cancer cellular uptake, finally leading to improved inhibition of cancer cell proliferation. Our study would offer a good idea for the engineering of drug nanocarriers with targeted cancer theranostics.