Sugar and pH dual-responsive snap-top nanocarriers based on mesoporous silica-coated Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticles for cargo delivery.

A facile strategy to prepare snap-top magnetic nanocarriers has been developed where ultrasmall superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles were used as the core with mesoporous silica as the shell followed by the covalent installation of a layer of β-cyclodextrins on the outer surfaces. The smart hybrid nanomaterials showed remarkable pH- and sugar-responsive cargo release property and low cytotoxicity as proved by an MTT assay with HEK293T cell lines.