Impacts of Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticle Size, Pore Ordering, and Pore Integrity on Hemolytic Activity

This paper uses the measure of hemolysis to evaluate the toxicity of nonporous and porous silica nanoparticles with varied sizes and investigates the effects of porous structure and integrity on the nanoparticle-cell interaction. The results show that both nonporous and porous silica cause red blood cell membrane damage in a concentration- and size-dependent manner. In the case of mesoporous silica nanoparticles, the size-dependent hemolysis effect is only present when the nanoparticles have long-range ordered porous structure, revealing that pore structure is critical in cell-nanoparticle interactions. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles show lower hemolytic activity than their nonporous counterparts of similar…

• NS
  National Science Council
• DO
  Division of Chemistry