A dual responsive targeted drug delivery system based on smart polymer coated mesoporous silica for laryngeal carcinoma treatment

We report a dual-responsive targeted drug delivery system (DDS) based on smart polymer coated mesoporous silica for laryngeal carcinoma therapy. Thermo/pH-coupling sensitive polymer poly[(N-isopropylacrylamide)-co-(methacrylic acid)] was grafted onto mesoporous silica active as a “valve” to moderate the diffusion of the embedded drugs in and out of the pore channels. The DDS showed a low level of drug leakage at low temperature/high pH values, but the significantly enhanced release at higher temperature/lower pH values, which exhibits an apparent thermo/pH controlled “on–off” drug release pattern. Most importantly, covalent binding of folic acid molecules to the composite allowed it to specifically target Hep2 cells, laryngeal squamous cancer cells with folic acid receptors. These results demonstrated that the composite nanoparticles were thermo/pH-coupling sensitive responsive, implying that the designed biocompatible system could be potentially applied as target release drug nanocarriers for laryngeal carcinoma therapy.