The shape effect of mesoporous silica nanoparticles on intracellular reactive oxygen species in A375 cells

Abstract

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) have attracted great attention in various biomedical applications. However, a detailed mechanism of intracellular behavior, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS), induced by MSNs, has been still paid little consideration to date. In this study, we first found that MSNs with different aspect ratios (1, 2, and 4) could decrease the intracellular ROS level in serum-free media, whereas the introduction of serum proteins could upregulate and display shape-dependent behavior. The ROS regulation mechanism by particle shapes in A375 cells was then analyzed by examining the endocytosis amount of MSNs, the mitochondrial damage, and the ROS-scavenging ability. These results indicated that the particle shapes play significant roles in regulating endogenous ROS. We envisage that the complete oxidative stress study of different shaped MSNs would provide important guidelines when considering the overall toxicity of these nanocarriers in biomedical applications.