Fabrication of mesoporous silica nanoparticles for targeted delivery of sunitinib to ovarian cancer cells

Introduction: Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs) are considered innovative multifunctional structures for targeted drug delivery owing to their outstanding physicochemical characteristics. Methods: MSNPs were fabricated using the sol-gel method, and polyethylene glycol-600 (PEG600) was used for MSNPs modification. Subsequently, sunitinib (SUN) was loaded into the MSNPs, MSNP-PEG and MSNP-PEG/SUN were grafted with mucin 16 (MUC16) aptamers. The nanosystems (NSs) were characterized using FT IR, TEM, SEM, DLS, XRD, BJH, and BET. Furthermore, the biological impacts of MSNPs were evaluated on the ovarian cancer cells by MTT assay and flow cytometry analysis. Results: The results revealed that the MSNPs have a spherical shape with an average dimension, pore size, and surface area of 56.10 nm, 2.488 nm, and 148.08 m²g^-1, respectively. The cell viability results showed higher toxicity of targeted MSNPs in MUC16 overexpressing OVCAR-3 cells as compared to the SK-OV-3 cells; that was further confirmed by the cellular uptake results. The cell cycle analysis exhibited that the induction of sub-G1 phase arrest mostly occurred in MSNP-PEG/ SUN-MUC16 treated OVCAR-3 cells and MSNP-PEG/SUN treated SK-OV-3 cells. DAPI staining showed apoptosis induction upon exposure to targeted MSNP in MUC16 positive OVCAR-3 cells. Conclusion: According to our results, the engineered NSs could be considered an effective multifunctional targeted drug delivery platform for the mucin 16 overexpressing cells.