Targeted Drug Delivery of Quercetin to Breast Cancer Cells Using a Modified SBA-15 Mesoporous Nanostructure

Undesired side effects and high hydrophobicity are the main drawbacks of conventional chemotherapeutic drugs. These limitations of cancer therapies prompted the use of nanomedicine. Over the past few years, nano-based drug delivery systems have gained considerable attention for the treatment of cancer. Nanotechnology advances offer a method of delivering anticancer drugs efficiently. In this work, mesoporous silica (SBA-15) has been functionalized with (3-aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) as a carrier for the anticancer medicine quercetin. Using both van der Waals’ force and hydrogen bonds, quercetin could bind to the porous structure. In the next step, the loading of quercetin and carbon quantum dots took place. Then, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) as a capping agent was used to control the release of the drug from the nano-carrier, and finally, folic acid was used to target the drug delivery. The nanocarrier-drug complexes were characterized by EDS, DLS, XRD, BET, FE-SEM, FT-IR, and UV–Vis. Also, drug release tests were performed in in-vitro conditions. Tests performed in buffer solution (pH 5.3) showed the best pharmaceutical availability. For healthy MCF-10A human breast epithelial cells (IC50 = 53.6 M) than for human breast cancer MCF-7 cells (IC50 = 13.4 M), formulations made from quercetin are much more toxic. This can be related to the presence of folic acid in the prepared formulation. The surface of cancer cells has a significantly higher number of folate receptors compared with healthy cells, so, the drug-containing formulation accumulates more heavily around cancer cells and has a bigger impact on these cells. The release index of the synthesized nano carrier exhibited the release of quercetin in applied media.