Magnetic Porous Silica-lipid Bilayer Hybrid Carriers for Target Delivery of Curcumin

Abstract

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles with embedded magnetic particles and sizes around 80 nm were prepared. Curcumin loading in mesoporous silica was realized by a post-synthesis impregnation procedure. The loaded particles were additionally modified by surface coating with a phospholipid bilayer of a thickness of around 5 nm changing the surface charge of the carrier from negative to positive, which enables the efficient attachment to cells, increasing the probability of cellular uptake. The non-loaded, curcumin loaded and their surface-coated counterparts were characterized by XRD, N₂ physisorption, thermal analysis, TEM, and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy. Release experiments were performed and demonstrated that the phospholipid coating contributed greatly a sustained drug release to be achieved. A comparative study on the antiproliferative effect of curcumin loaded into the mesoporous carrier and lipid-coated vs. free drug was performed on a panel of three human cell lines. On the basis of the obtained results, it can be concluded that obtained hybrid magnetic silica-lipid particles are promising carriers of curcumin.