.. Over the past few years, a variety of functional nanostructures, kinase inhibitor Calcitriol such as mesoporous materials (e.g., silica- and silicon-based) come to the fore to circumvent the problems associated with the currently practiced therapeutic modalities for cancer-specific targeting, imaging and therapy. These materials have attracted great attention in the scientific community due to their unique physicochemical properties and potential biomedical applications.14-19 The complexity of health diseases has triggered the close collaboration of different research areas, such as engineering, nano(bio)technology and nanomedicine. Mesoporous materials have also been proposed as drug delivery carriers of a wide variety of therapeutic agents and lately with particular emphasis in the nanomedicine field.

15,20 These mesoporous systems are designed to carry and release their payloads to a specific location in the body and at a controllable release rate, without compromising the patient��s health. This is only feasible if the mesoporous material itself is biocompatible and biodegradable.21-23 The pore diameters of these mesoporous materials can be tuned to 2?50 nm allowing high payloads of therapeutic molecules and protecting them from premature release and degradation before reaching a specific site where the payload is then controlled release with an effective concentration of pharmacological relevance.15,16,18,24 The most remarkable properties of the mesoporous silicon (PSi) and silica (PSiO2) materials as nanodelivery systems are their high surface-to-volume ratio, large surface area (up to 700-1,000 m2/g), large pore volume (> 0.

9 cm3/g),14,18 possessing a stable and rigid framework with excellent chemical, thermal and mechanical stability. In this respect, the mesoporous materials act as reservoirs for storing the therapeutic molecules and can be easily tailored via different pore size and surface chemistries, for selective storage.15,18 In addition, both the exterior of the particle and the interior pore surfaces can also be easily functionalized with different biomolecules for targeting therapy and site-specific delivery.15,24-26 Thus, the cellular uptake can be maximized by tuning the shape, size, pore or surface functionalization of the mesoporous based materials.

Although the majority of the studies found in the literature have been focused on the structure, morphology, surface properties and size of both PSi and PSiO2 for controlled drug delivery applications and in cancer treatments, several studies have also demonstrated the biosafety and biocompatibility Carfilzomib of these materials both in vitro and in vivo.27 In this review, we will present and discuss the most recent works on PSi and PSiO2 based nanomaterials for cancer therapy. Detailed information on the preparation and characterization of PSi17-19,28 and PSiO214-16,29 materials can be found extensively in the literature and will not be revised herein.