Non-destructively shattered mesoporous silica for protein drug delivery

•Mesoporous silica was shattered by sonication resulting in improved intramesoporous structure.•Sonication-shattered mesoporous silica still kept its mesoporous structure.•Sonication-shattered mesoporous silica allowed much higher protein loading density.•The resulting higher protein loading density may allow a more sustained protein drug release.

Mesoporous silicas have been extensively used for entrapping small chemical molecules and biomacromolecules for drug delivery. We hypothesize that the loading density of biomacromolecules such as proteins in mesoporous silicas could be limited due to disordering in the pore structure and long diffusion time in the pore channels. We shattered mesoporous silicas non-destructively resulting in improved intramesoporous structures and reduced particle sizes in aqueous solutions by a powerful sonication, where the mesoporous structures were still well maintained. The sonication-shattered mesoporous silica can increase the protein loading density to nearly 2.7 times as high as that of the non-shattered one, demonstrating that significantly more mesopore space of the silica could be accessible by the protein molecules, which may result in more sustained protein drug delivery.

Graphical abstractNon-destructively shattered mesoporous silica can increase the protein loading density up to 2.7 times as high as that of the non-shattered one, demonstrating that significantly more mesoporous room of the silica could become accessible for biomacromolecule loading and potentially for a more sustained protein drug delivery.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide