ABSTRACT
Silica-based materials like mesoporous silica nanoparticles have been in research practice for almost three decades now. Its artistic properties such as tuneable pore size, pore volume, surface area, colloidal stability, and ease of functionalization on inner and outer surfaces make it a potent and suitable choice for biomedical applications. Surface functionalization on mesoporous silica nanoparticles has been carried out in order to achieve active targeting to cancer cells for detection and therapeutic purposes. The mesoporous silica nanoparticles provide a significant property of enhanced adsorption owing to its mesoporous nature, thereby making it an adequate vehicle for drug delivery applications. Mesoporous silica nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems may be controlled and manipulated through specific stimuli to generate precise responses in pathological conditions across biological cells. The fabrication of mesoporous silica nanoparticles with advanced drug delivery strategies are driven by ultrasounds, magnetic fields, and electric fields in response to change in pH, temperature, and enzymatic activity across the microenvironment of targeted pathological conditions. In order to impart suitability and to offer multifunctionality, the mesoporous silica nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems are functionalized with multiple moieties simultaneously. Various functionalities like pH, magnetic, ultrasound, biomolecule and light-responsive mesoporous silica nanoparticles are fabricated and transformed into multi-responsive mesoporous silica nanoparticles. In this report, diverse strategies to functionalize mesoporous silica nanoparticles along with their mechanism of action are critically reviewed and discussed. Insight into recent advances in stimuli-responsive approaches of mesoporous silica nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems is conferred that associates the progress of mesoporous silica nanoparticles in the field of drug delivery and imaging.
