Impacts of Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticle Size, Pore Ordering, and Pore Integrity on Hemolytic Activity

摘要

This paper uses the measure of hemolysis to evaluate the toxicity of nonporous and porousnsilica nanoparticles with varied sizes and investigates the effects of porous structure and integrity on thennanoparticle-cell interaction. The results show that both nonporous and porous silica cause red blood cellnmembrane damage in a concentration- and size-dependent manner. In the case of mesoporous silicannanoparticles, the size-dependent hemolysis effect is only present when the nanoparticles have longrangenordered porous structure, revealing that pore structure is critical in cell-nanoparticle interactions.nMesoporous silica nanoparticles show lower hemolytic activity than their nonporous counterparts of similarnsize, likely due to fewer silanol groups on the cell-contactable surface of the porous silica nanoparticles.nThe extent of hemolysis by mesoporous silica nanoparticles increases as the pore structure is compromisednby mild aging in phosphate-buffered solutions, initiating mesopore collapse. The pore integrity of mesoporousnsilica nanoparticles is examined by TEM, XRD, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, and quantification ofndissolved silica. In these nanoparticles, pore stability is clearly an important factor in determining thenhemolytic activity; further work demonstrates that nanoparticle-induced hemolysis can be eliminated bynmodifying the silanol surface with a poly(ethylene glycol) coating.