Facile synthesis of poly(DMAEMA-co-MPS)-coated porous silica nanocarriers as dual-targeting drug delivery platform: Experimental and biological investigations

Abstract

Inorganic structures with functionalized polymers play essential roles in diverse biological trends. Herein, thermal and CO₂ dual-stimuli nanomaterials composed of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) anchored with two grafted copolymers: poly(3-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane) “PMPS” & poly(N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate) “PDMAEMA” were synthesized via one-step reaction and characterized by BET as well as BJH methods to estimate pore sizes, pore volumes, and surface areas. The smart PDMAEMA acted as an active gatekeeper to adjust the loading or in vitro release processes of a fungicidal drug-loaded inside the mesopores by altering temperature or CO₂ of the tested environment. Furthermore, treating the nanomaterials by CO₂ for a few minutes was found to have a bactericidal effect with promising results as indicated by the disk diffusion technique. In general, the positive biological activity against selected strains of bacteria and fungi indicates that these particles may be helpful for engineering more efficient antifungal or antibacterial agents for pharmaceutical applications.