Dopamine-triggered one-step functionalization of hollow silica nanospheres for simultaneous lubrication and drug release

Abstract Osteoarthritis (OA) has been regarded as a lubrication deficiency related joint disease. Combination of both and drug intervention may provide promising nonsurgical strategy for treatment OA. Developing novel simple approaches to fabricate superlubricating nanoparticles with release property is highly required. Herein, dopamine triggered one-step polymerization method was employed polydopamine/poly(3-sulfopropyl methacrylate potassium salt) (PDA—PSPMA) conjugate coating on hollow silica (h-SiO 2 ) nanosphere surfaces engineer functional /PDA—PSPMA). The as-prepared h-SiO /PDA—PSPMA exhibits excellent aqueous performance biomaterial substrates well natural bovine articular cartilage based hydration effect negatively charged PDA—PSPMA “rolling” nanospheres. In vitro loading-release experiments demonstrate that functionalized nanospheres show high drug-loading sustained-release capability an anti-inflammatory drug, diclofenac sodium (DS). Such can be potentially used synergistic therapy agent OA combining by simultaneous release.