Using Evaporation-Induced Self-Assembly for the Direct Drug Templating of Therapeutic Vectors with High Loading Fractions, Tunable Drug Release, and Controlled Degradation

A novel one-step approach for designing nonaggregated silica-based mesostructured therapeutic vectors is presented. Evaporation-induced self-assembly was used in combination with amphiphilic drugs for preparing already loaded class I and class II hybrid materials containing from 50 to 60 wt % (up to 75 vol %) of three drugs (glucosyl-resveratrol, stearoyl choline, sophorolipid). A good mesostructuration was able to promote an interfacial control of the drug release in PBS medium. The investigation of both release mechanisms and matrix dissolution was conducted via in situ ellipsometry and NMR. It proved that the nature of the drug/matrix interaction, the chemical composition of the drug/matrix interface, and the mesostructuration quality parameters must be taken into account at the same time for tuning the drug release rate, while maintaining the dissolution rate of silica at a reasonable level for limiting its toxicity. It proved also that noncalcined as-made silica-based class I hybrid materials can be efficiently used for tuning drug release kinetics from 1 h to day scale.