pH Clock-Operated Mechanized Nanoparticles

摘要

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles, mechanized with nanovalves and other artificial molecular machines, are promising vehicles for drug delivery because they are biologically compatible and are capable of storing and releasing molecules on command. Previously, mechanized nanoparticles (MNPs) designed to release their contents in response to an externally controlled light source were used to deliver therapeutic molecules to human cancer cells.3 However, for some applications, self-opening drug carrier vehicles that respond autonomously to a particular biostimulus are preferred. In the work reported here, we present tunable pH-operable MNPs in which biologically relevant pH changes are used to trigger the release of guest molecules.