Engineered Design of Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles to Deliver Doxorubicin and P-Glycoprotein siRNA to Overcome Drug Resistance in a Cancer Cell Line

Overexpression of drug efflux transporters such as P-glycoprotein (Pgp) protein is one of the major mechanisms for multiple drug resistance (MDR) in cancer cells. A new approach to overcome MDR is to use a co-delivery strategy that utilizes a siRNA to silence the expression of efflux transporter together with an appropriate anticancer drug for drug resistant cells. In this paper, we report that mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNP) can be functionalized to effectively deliver a chemotherapeutic agent doxorubicin (Dox) as well as Pgp siRNA to a drug-resistant cancer cell line (KB-V1 cells) to accomplish cell killing in an additive or synergistic fashion. The functionalization of the particle surface with a…