• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.320-330
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• 2017

Porous nanosilica (PNS) has been identified as a potential candidate for controlled drug delivery. However, unmodified PNS-based carriers exhibited an initial release of loaded bioactive agents, which may limit their potential clinical applications. In this study, the surface of PNS was functionalized with adamantylamine (ADA) via disulfide bonds (-S-S-), PNS-S-S-ADA, which was then modified with cyclodextrin (CD)-heparin (Hep) (CD-Hep), PNS-S-S-CDH, for redox triggered rhodamine B (RhB) delivery. The obtained samples were then characterized by proton nuclear magnetic resonance ($^{1}H\;NMR$), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and transmission electron microscope (TEM). These results showed that PNS-S-S-CDH was successfully formed with spherical shape and average diameter of $45.64{\pm}2.33nm$. In addition, RhB was relatively encapsulated in the PNS-S-S-CDH (RhB@PNS-S-S-CDH) and slowly released up to 3 days. The release of RhB, in particular, was triggered due to the cleavage of -S-S- in the presence of dithiothreitol (DTT). It might be anticipated that the modified PNS can be used as redox-responsive drug delivery system in cancer therapy.