Nanomaterial surface modification toolkit: Principles, components, recipes, and applications

Surface-functionalized nanostructures are at the forefront of biotechnology, providing new opportunities for biosensors, drug delivery, therapy, and bioimaging applications. The modification of nanostructures significantly impacts the performance and success of various applications by enabling selective and precise targeting. This review elucidates widely practiced surface modification strategies, including click chemistry, cross-coupling, silanization, aldehyde linkers, active ester chemistry, maleimide chemistry, epoxy linkers, and other protein and DNA-based methodologies. We also delve into the application-focused landscape of the nano-bio interface, emphasizing four key domains: therapeutics, biosensing, environmental monitoring, and point-of-care technologies, by highlighting prominent studies. The insights presented herein pave the way for further innovations at the intersection of nanotechnology and biotechnology, providing a useful handbook for beginners and professionals. The review draws on various sources, including the latest research articles (2018-2023), to provide a comprehensive overview of the field.

Recent Advances in Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticle-Mediated Drug Delivery for Breast Cancer Treatment

Breast cancer (BC) currently occupies the second rank in cancer-related global female deaths. Although consistent awareness and improved diagnosis have reduced mortality in recent years, late diagnosis and resistant response still limit the therapeutic efficacy of chemotherapeutic drugs (CDs), leading to relapse with consequent invasion and metastasis. Treatment with CDs is indeed well-versed but it is badly curtailed with accompanying side effects and inadequacies of site-specific drug delivery. As a result, drug carriers ensuring stealth delivery and sustained drug release with improved pharmacokinetics and biodistribution are urgently needed. Core-shell mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs) have recently been a cornerstone in this context, attributed to their high surface area, low density, robust functionalization, high drug loading capacity, size-shape-controlled functioning, and homogeneous shell architecture, enabling stealth drug delivery. Recent interest in using MSNPs as drug delivery vehicles has been due to their functionalization and size-shape-driven versatilities. With such insights, this article focuses on the preparation methods and drug delivery mechanisms of MSNPs, before discussing their emerging utility in BC treatment. The information compiled herein could consolidate the database for using inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) as BC drug delivery vehicles in terms of design, application and resolving post-therapy complications.

Ionic Liquid-Based Surfactants: Recent Advances in Their Syntheses, Solution Properties, and Applications

The impetus for the expanding interest in ionic liquids (ILs) is their favorable properties and important applications. Ionic liquid-based surfactants (ILBSs) carry long-chain hydrophobic tails. Two or more molecules of ILBSs can be joined by covalent bonds leading, e.g., to gemini compounds (GILBSs). This review article focuses on aspects of the chemistry and applications of ILBSs and GILBSs, especially in the last ten years. Data on their adsorption at the interface and micelle formation are relevant for the applications of these surfactants. Therefore, we collected data for 152 ILBSs and 11 biamphiphilic compounds. The head ions of ILBSs are usually heterocyclic (imidazolium, pyridinium, pyrrolidinium, etc.). Most of these head-ions are also present in the reported 53 GILBSs. Where possible, we correlate the adsorption/micellar properties of the surfactants with their molecular structures, in particular, the number of carbon atoms present in the hydrocarbon "tail". The use of ILBSs as templates for the fabrication of mesoporous nanoparticles enables better control of particle porosity and size, hence increasing their usefulness. ILs and ILBSs form thermodynamically stable water/oil and oil/water microemulsions. These were employed as templates for (radical) polymerization reactions, where the monomer is the "oil" component. The formed polymer nanoparticles can be further stabilized against aggregation by using a functionalized ILBS that is co-polymerized with the monomers. In addition to updating the literature on the subject, we hope that this review highlights the versatility and hence the potential applications of these classes of surfactants in several fields, including synthesis, catalysis, polymers, decontamination, and drug delivery.

Encapsulation of Ionic Liquids for Tailored Applications

This spotlight article highlights the favorable impact encapsulation of ionic liquids (ILs) has on multiple advanced applications. ILs are molten salts with many attractive properties such as negligible vapor pressure, good thermal stability, and high ionic conductivity; however, their widespread implementation in advanced applications is hampered by their relatively high viscosity, which makes them difficult to handle and results in slow mass transfer rates. The ability to encapsulate IL in a shell holds potential to impact many applications, including separations, gas sequestration, and energy storage and management, given that the capsule structure provides high surface area compared to that of bulk IL and also allows handling of the IL as a solid. Herein, we discuss encapsulation of ILs using different approaches and highlight the contributions from our lab in both capsule preparation and application. Specifically, we have developed the ability to use 2D carbon nanoparticle surfactants and interfacial polymerization to prepare capsules of IL using both IL-in-water and IL-in-oil Pickering emulsions as templates. This facile, one-step method to encapsulate ILs gives structures with beneficial performance in supercapacitors, separations, and CO₂ sequestration, as discussed herein. We conclude this spotlight with an outlook on how to improve upon these systems for next-generation applications.

Synthesis and compatibility evaluation of versatile mesoporous silica nanoparticles with red blood cells: an overview

Protean mesoporous silica nanoparticles are propitious candidates over decades for nanoscale drug delivery systems due to their unique characteristics, including changeable pore size, mesoporosity, high drug loading capacity and biodegradability.

Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles: A Comprehensive Review on Synthesis and Recent Advances

Recent advancements in drug delivery technologies utilizing a variety of carriers have resulted in a path-breaking revolution in the approach towards diagnosis and therapy alike in the current times. Need for materials with high thermal, chemical and mechanical properties have led to the development of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs). These ordered porous materials have garnered immense attention as drug carriers owing to their distinctive features over the others. They can be synthesized using a relatively simple process, thus making it cost effective. Moreover, by controlling the parameters during the synthesis; the morphology, pore size and volume and particle size can be transformed accordingly. Over the last few years, a rapid increase in research on MSNs as drug carriers for the treatment of various diseases has been observed indicating its potential benefits in drug delivery. Their widespread application for the loading of small molecules as well as macromolecules such as proteins, siRNA and so forth, has made it a versatile carrier. In the recent times, researchers have sorted to several modifications in the framework of MSNs to explore its potential in drug resistant chemotherapy, antimicrobial therapy. In this review, we have discussed the synthesis of these multitalented nanoparticles and the factors influencing the size and morphology of this wonder carrier. The second part of this review emphasizes on the applications and the advances made in the MSNs to broaden the spectrum of its use especially in the field of biomedicine. We have also touched upon the lacunae in the thorough understanding of its interaction with a biological system which poses a major hurdle in the passage of this carrier to the clinical level. In the final part of this review, we have discussed some of the major patents filed in the field of MSNs for therapeutic purpose.

Biological Activity of Ionic Liquids and Their Application in Pharmaceutics and Medicine

Ionic liquids are remarkable chemical compounds, which find applications in many areas of modern science. Because of their highly tunable nature and exceptional properties, ionic liquids have become essential players in the fields of synthesis and catalysis, extraction, electrochemistry, analytics, biotechnology, etc. Apart from physical and chemical features of ionic liquids, their high biological activity has been attracting significant attention from biochemists, ecologists, and medical scientists. This Review is dedicated to biological activities of ionic liquids, with a special emphasis on their potential employment in pharmaceutics and medicine. The accumulated data on the biological activity of ionic liquids, including their antimicrobial and cytotoxic properties, are discussed in view of possible applications in drug synthesis and drug delivery systems. Dedicated attention is given to a novel active pharmaceutical ingredient-ionic liquid (API-IL) concept, which suggests using traditional drugs in the form of ionic liquid species. The main aim of this Review is to attract a broad audience of chemical, biological, and medical scientists to study advantages of ionic liquid pharmaceutics. Overall, the discussed data highlight the importance of the research direction defined as "Ioliomics", studies of ions in liquids in modern chemistry, biology, and medicine.