Porous silicon microparticles tested in vitro
Nanostructured silicon microparticles allowed localized delivery of an anticancer agent to cancer cells in vitro, researchers reported. The porous particles can be guided by a magnetic field and tracked using fluorescence imaging, one of the researchers said.
These microparticles can protect the loaded drugs and deliver them locally using magnetic guiding, which can be helpful for using less stable drugs and for decreasing the systemic toxicity of the drugs. The porous nanostructure and large pore volume of the microparticles can load dissimilar payloads at the same time, potentially achieving co-delivery of multiple drugs, said Luo Go, a graduate student in the research group of Michael J. Sailor, PhD, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego.
Gu is first author of a study describing the porous silicon microparticles (Gu L, Park JH, Duong KH, et al. [Published online ahead print Sept 2, 2010.] Small).
The intrinsically luminescent silicon particles, loaded with iron oxide nanoparticles and the drug doxorubicin, were delivered at high concentration to human cancer cells, and localized cell death was confirmed, the study authors reported.
Gu listed potential advantages of this delivery method in an e-mail to PFQ: First, there is no need of biomarkers for targeting. Second, the delivery vehicles are concentrated by magnetic field, while with biomolecular recognition off-targeting is still a problem. Third, there is better control of freeing the target, which can be achieved by just removing the magnetic field.
SOURCE:PFQ
