Synthesis and characterization of magnetic mesoporous core–shell nanocomposites for targeted drug delivery applications

Magnetic mesoporous nanocomposites are emerging as a significant new material to improve the effectiveness of cancer treatment and enhance the availability of drug therapy. Thus, the core–shell structure magnetic mesoporous nanocomposites (Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @LDH) were synthesized with an average diameter of about 100 nm and used as methotrexate (MTX) carriers for cancer therapy. As an important biological material, Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @LDH exhibited higher superparamagnetic behavior and biocompatibility, and the drugs can be loaded in the channels of the mesoporous silica and the interlayer of layered double hydroxides (LDH). The embedding rate of magnetic mesoporous silica (Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 ) and LDH were 60.32 % and 0.67 %, respectively, and the release rate of the drug delivery systems (Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @LDH-MTX) was 66.81 %. In addition, LDH as a kind of pH-sensitive material was adopted for controlled drug release and WST-1 assays in cancer cells (Hela) demonstrated that Fe 3 O 4 @SiO 2 @LDH-MTX presented high anti-tumor activity, while the carriers were nearly non-toxic. Therefore, all the results suggested that the magnetic nanocomposites can be employed to deliver MTX, and would be applied in the field of cancer therapy in the future.