Non-destructively shattered mesoporous silica for protein drug delivery

Mesoporous silicas have been extensively used for entrapping small chemical molecules and biomacromolecules for drug delivery. We hypothesize that the loading density of biomacromlecules such as proteins in mesoporous silicas could be limited due to disordering in the pore structure and long diffusion time in the pore channels. We shattered mesoporous silicas non-destructively resulting in improved intramesoporous structures and reduced particle sizes in aqueous solutions by a powerful sonication, where the mesoporous structures were still well maintained. The sonication-shattered mesoporous silica can increase the protein loading density to nearly 2.7 times as high as that of the non-shattered one, demonstrating that significantly more mesopore space of the silica could be accessible by the protein molecules, which may result in more sustained protein drug delivery.