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Review
. 2021 Jan 24;13(2):152.
doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics13020152.

Progress in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cancer Treatment

Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa  1 , Haslina Ahmad  2   3 , Mohd Basyaruddin Abdul Rahman  2 , Martin R Gill  4
Affiliations
Review

Progress in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Drug Delivery Agents for Cancer Treatment

Eleen Dayana Mohamed Isa et al. Pharmaceutics. .

Abstract

Cancer treatment and therapy have made significant leaps and bounds in these past decades. However, there are still cases where surgical removal is impossible, metastases are challenging, and chemotherapy and radiotherapy pose severe side effects. Therefore, a need to find more effective and specific treatments still exists. One way is through the utilization of drug delivery agents (DDA) based on nanomaterials. In 2001, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) were first used as DDA and have gained considerable attention in this field. The popularity of MSNs is due to their unique properties such as tunable particle and pore size, high surface area and pore volume, easy functionalization and surface modification, high stability and their capability to efficiently entrap cargo molecules. This review describes the latest advancement of MSNs as DDA for cancer treatment. We focus on the fabrication of MSNs, the challenges in DDA development and how MSNs address the problems through the development of smart DDA using MSNs. Besides that, MSNs have also been applied as a multifunctional DDA where they can serve in both the diagnostic and treatment of cancer. Overall, we argue MSNs provide a bright future for both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Keywords: cancer; drug delivery; mesoporous silica nanoparticles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Common techniques in mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) synthesis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic depiction of tunable MSNs’ properties.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Common targeting ligands functionalized on MSNs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Schematic illustration of smart MSNs with the stimulus-responsive system.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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