Abstract:Hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSN) with a diameter of about 100 nm were fabricated from tetraethyl orthosilicate. HMSN were used as drug nanocarrier to load chemotherapeutic drug doxorubicin (DOX) and manganese dioxide by physical embedding method and in situ reduction of KMnO4 to produce manganese dioxide. Then, a pH-responsive nano-drug delivery system (DOX/MnO2@HMSN-imide-PEG-R7-RGDS) was constructed by forming Schiff base between tamino group at the terminal of tumor-targeting functional peptide (PEG-R7-RGDS) and the aldehyde-modified nanoparticles (HMSN-CHO). The morphology, particle size, structure and composition of the nanomaterials were characterized by TEM, laser particle size analyzer, FTIR and XRD. The results showed that the synthesized spherical HMSN possessed hollow nanostructure. DOX/MnO2@HMSN-imide-PEG-R7-RGDS nanoparticles exhibited higher drugrelease rate under the simulated acidic tumor environment (pH 5.0) than that in the simulated physiological environment (pH 7.4). In addition, the results of in vitro cell experiments indicated that DOX/MnO2@HMSN-imide-PEG-R7-RGDS could target to cervical cancer cells (HeLa) and release DOX efficiently. At the same time, MnO2 in nanoparticles reacted with high concentration of glutathione (GSH) in tumor cells to produce Mn2+ with Fenton-like effect. Subsequently, Mn2+ would catalyze endogenous H2O2 into highly toxic ·OH via Fenton-like chemistry. The cytotoxicity experiments revealed that the combination of chemodynamic therapy and chemotherapy of DOX/MnO2@HMSN-imide-PEG-R7-RGDS could produce high cytotoxicity against HeLa cells.