Mechanism of erosion of nanostructured porous silicon drug carriers in neoplastic tissues.

ABSTRACT: Nanostructured porous silicon (PSi) is emerging as a promising platform for drug delivery owing to its biocompatibility, degradability and high surface area available for drug loading. The ability to control PSi structure, size and porosity enables programming its in vivo retention, providing tight control over embedded drug release kinetics. In this work, the relationship between the in vitro and in vivo degradation of PSi under (pre)clinically relevant conditions, using breast cancer mouse model, is defined. We show that PSi undergoes enhanced degradation in diseased environment compared with healthy state, owing to the upregulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the tumour vicinity that oxidize the silicon scaffold and catalyse its degradation. We further show that PSi degradation

SUBMITTER: Tzur-Balter A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4339882 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature