Active stealth and self-positioning biomimetic vehicles achieved effective antitumor therapy

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are recognized as promising drug delivery vehicles. However, the limitation of drug loading capacity and safety considerations are two obstacles to the further application of MSCs. Here, we report MSC membrane-coated mesoporous silica nanoparticles ([email protected]) that maintain the active stealth and self-positioning drug delivery abilities of MSCs and resolve issues related to MSCs-mediated drug delivery. [email protected] was established through uniformly integrating MSC membrane onto a mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) core by sonication. Reduced clearance of phagocytes mediated by CD47 marker on MSC membrane was observed in vitro, which explained the only ~ 25% clearance rate of [email protected] compared with MSN in vivo within 24 h. [email protected] also showed stronger tumor targeting and penetration ability compared with MSN in HepG2 tumor bearing mice. Simultaneously, [email protected] exhibited strong capacity for drug loading and sustained drug release ability of MSN when loaded with doxorubicin (DOX), the drug loading of [email protected] increased ~ 5 folds compared with MSC membrane. In HepG2 xenograft mice, DOX-loaded [email protected] effectively inhibited the growth of tumors and decreased the side effects of treatment by decreasing the exposure of other tissues to DOX. Consequently, our [email protected] may serve as alternative vehicles for MSCs and provide more options for antitumor treatment.