Structurally ordered mesoporous carbon nanoparticles as transmembrane delivery vehicle in human cancer cells

A structurally ordered, CMK-1 type mesoporous carbon nanoparticle (MCN) material was successfully synthesized by using a MCM-48 type mesoporous silica nanoparticle as template. The structure of MCN was analyzed by a series of different techniques, including the scanning and transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, and N2 sorption analysis. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been reported prior to our investigation on the utilization of these structurally ordered mesoporous carbon nanoparticles for the delivery of membrane impermeable chemical agents inside of eukaryotic cells. The cellular uptake efficiency and biocompatibility of MCN with human cervical cancer cells (HeLa) were investigated. Our results show that the inhibitory concentration (IC50) value of MCN is very high (>50 microg/mL per million cells) indicating that MCN is fairly biocompatible in vitro. Also, a membrane impermeable fluorescence dye, Fura-2, was loaded to the mesoporous matrix of MCN. We demonstrated that the MCN material could indeed serve as a transmembrane carrier for delivering Fura-2 through the cell membrane to release these molecules inside of live HeLa cells. We envision that further developments of this MCN material will lead to a new generation of nanodevices for transmembrane delivery and intracellular release applications.