Stepwise-acid-active multifunctional mesoporous silica nanoparticles for tumor-specific nucleus-targeted drug delivery.

In this paper, a novel stepwise-acid-active multifunctional mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN-(SA)TAT&(DMA)K11) was developed as a drug carrier. The MSN-(SA)TAT&(DMA)K11 is able to reverse its surface charge from negative to positive in the mildly acidic tumor extracellular environment. Then, the fast endo/lysosomal escape and subsequent nucleus targeting as well as intranuclear drug release can be realized after cellular internalization. Because of the difference in acidity between the tumor extracellular environment and that of endo/lysosomes, this multifunctional MSN-(SA)TAT&(DMA)K11 exhibits a stepwise-acid-active drug delivery with a tumor-specific nucleus-targeted property.