A novel strategy to fabricate doxorubicin/bovine serum albumin/porous silicon nanocomposites with pH-triggered drug delivery for cancer therapy in vitro.

Porous silicon nanoparticles (PSiNPs) as drug nanocarriers have been widely applied in the field of nanomedicine. However, a major challenge in PSiNP-based drug delivery systems is the fabrication of novel nanocarriers with high stability under physiological conditions, efficient loading and controlled release of therapeutic agents. Herein, we found that bovine serum albumin with efficient loading of doxorubicin (DOX) could be readily attached onto alkyl-terminated PSiNPs to form novel PSiNP-based nanocomposites, which have excellent long-term stability under physiological conditions. In addition, pH-responsive release of DOX from these PSiNP-based nanocomposites was clearly observed. After the cellular interaction, DOX released from these PSiNP-based nanocomposites was localized in intracellular nuclei, which resulted in high efficiency of killing cancer cells.