Silica coated titania nanotubes for drug delivery system

Nanomaterials are attracting a great deal of attention as potentially excellent transporters of peptides, proteins, genes, and drug medications; however, thus far many nanomaterials are toxic in vivo. The nanotubes utilized in the system described herein were controlled so as not to exhibit toxicity, due to their extremely small dimensions and the constituent material itself. A drug delivery system using silica coated titania nanotube-protein conjugations was applied to mouse neural stem cells (m-NSCs) and cultured for one month. Nanotubes were prepared by silica sol-gel treatment and bonded with proteins by an electrical charge and were readily detached from proteins in cytoplasm. The delivered proteins evidenced functions in live cells for transcriptional factors; the morphology of the cells was consequently altered. In this study, we demonstrate the ability of this nano-sized material to deliver peptides, proteins, and drugs, and also show that the delivered proteins continued to function in live cells. (C) 2010 Elsevier BM. All rights reserved.