Self-assembly of bi-functional peptides on large-pore mesoporous silica nanoparticles for miRNA binding and delivery.

Bi-functional peptides were designed to have binding abilities for both silica nanoparticles and miRNAs. Non-covalent self-assembly of peptides on large pore mesoporous silica nanoparticles provides a delivery system that shows a high binding capacity for nucleic acids, strong transfection efficiency of miRNA and attractive down-regulation of protein expression.