TY - JOUR U1 - Wissenschaftlicher Artikel A1 - Dohare, Akanksha A1 - Brodbeck, Björn A1 - Mukherjee, Ashutosh A1 - Brecht, Marc A1 - Kandelbauer, Andreas A1 - Schäffer, Erik A1 - Mayer, Hermann A1 - Sudhakar, Swathi T1 - Anisotropic and amphiphilic mesoporous core−shell silica microparticles provide chemically selective environments for simultaneous delivery of curcumin and quercetin JF - Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids N2 - Porous silica materials are often used for drug delivery. However, systems for simultaneous delivery of multiple drugs are scarce. Here we show that anisotropic and amphiphilic dumbbell core–shell silica microparticles with chemically selective environments can entrap and release two drugs simultaneously. The dumbbells consist of a large dense lobe and a smaller hollow hemisphere. Electron microscopy images show that the shells of both parts have mesoporous channels. In a simple etching process, the properly adjusted stirring speed and the application of ammonium fluoride as etching agent determine the shape and the surface anisotropy of the particles. The surface of the dense lobe and the small hemisphere differ in their zeta potentials consistent with differences in dye and drug entrapment. Confocal Raman microscopy and spectroscopy show that the two polyphenols curcumin (Cur) and quercetin (QT) accumulate in different compartments of the particles. The overall drug entrapment efficiency of Cur plus QT is high for the amphiphilic particles but differs widely between Cur and QT compared to controls of core–shell silica microspheres and uniformly charged dumbbell microparticles. Furthermore, Cur and QT loaded microparticles show different cancer cell inhibitory activities. The highest activity is detected for the dual drug loaded amphiphilic microparticles in comparison to the controls. In the long term, amphiphilic particles may open up new strategies for drug delivery. KW - microparticles KW - nanoparticles KW - silica KW - cells KW - particulate matter Y1 - 2021 SN - 0743-7463 SS - 0743-7463 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c02210 DO - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c02210 VL - 37 IS - 45 SP - 13460 EP - 13470 S1 - 11 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington, DC ER -