Cytotoxic Effects of Phosphonate-Functionalized Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles

In this work, we synthesized pristine mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN) and functionalized these with phosphonate groups (MSN-Phos). We report, for the first time, cell death in MCF-7 cells (human breast adenocarcinoma cell line) when exposed to the empty MSN and MSN-Phos nanoparticles. In comparison, the same nanoparticles were found to elicit few deleterious effects on normal human foreskin fibroblast cells (BJ cells). MCF-7 cells were found to exhibit a concentration-dependent uptake, whereas no detectable nanoparticle uptake was observed in the BJ cells, irrespective of treatment dosage. A disruption of the cell cycle in the MCF-7 cells was determined to be the cause of cell death from the nanoparticle exposure, thereby suggesting the role of nondrug loaded MSN and MSN-Phos as effective anticancer drugs.