Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles as Versatile carrier platforms in therapeutic applications

The utilization of nanotechnology is one of the fast-growing scientific discoveries that significantly affect our daily lives, especially its application in nanomedicine and targeted gene/drug delivery. The pharmaceutical researchers aim to design new carrier platforms to decrease the unwanted side effects of common medicines and the desired control over therapeutic agent distribution in the targeted part of the body. The new systems must have some advantages over the traditional medicines, such as improving the stability, uptake, therapeutic concentration, and long-term release of the drug into the target tissue. Among the extended material list used as nanocarriers for drug delivery purposes, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have attracted considerable attention in this regard. The high porosity of mesoporous silica materials allows different sizes of biologically active molecules (BAM) to settle in their cavities. As a result, a wide range of BAM, such as small molecules, proteins, deoxyribonucleic acids (DNAs), and ribonucleic acids (RNAs), are loaded into the MSNs cavities for therapeutic purposes. Here, we review recent researches on MSNs applications in gene/ drug delivery in various diseases.