Super-Assembled Periodic Mesoporous Organosilica Frameworks for Real-Time Hypoxia-Triggered Drug Release and Monitoring
Yingnan Liu, Lei Xie, Meng Gao, Runhao Zhang, Jingchen Gao, Jiangdong Sun, Qingdong Chai, Tong Wu, Kang Liang, Pu Chen, Qi Wan, Biao Kong
Abstract
Hypoxia, induced by inadequate oxygen supply, is a key indication of various major illnesses, which necessitates the need to develop new nanoprobes capable of sensing hypoxia environments for the targeted system monitoring and drug delivery. Herein, we report a hypoxia-responsive, periodic mesoporous organosilica (PMO) nanocarrier for repairing hypoxia damage. β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) capped azobenzene functionalization on the PMO surface could be effectively cleaved by azoreductase under a hypoxia environment. Moreover, the nanosystem is equipped with fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) pair (tetrastyrene derivative (TPE) covalently attached to the PMO framework as the donor and Rhodamine B (RhB) in the mesopores as the receptor) for intracellular visualization and tracking of drug release in real-time. The design of intelligent nanocarriers capable of simultaneous reporting and treating of hypoxia conditions highlights a great potential in the biomedical domain.