Materials Chemistry and Physics 287 (2022) 126287 Available online 22 May 2022 0254-0584/© 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V. Hollow mesoporous SiO 2 –ZnO nanocapsules and effective in vitro delivery of anticancer drugs against different cancers with low doses of drugs Gopabandhu Panigrahi b , Himadri Medhi b , Kirti Wasnik a , Sukanya Patra a , Premshankar Gupta a , Divya Pareek a , Somedutta Maity b , Monica Mandey b , Pradip Paik a, * a School of Biomedical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, BHU, Varanasi, 221 006, UP, India b School of Engineering Sciences and Technology, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, 500046, India HIGHLIGHTS G R A P H I C A L ABSTRACT • Biosafe spherical hollow and meso- porous SiO 2 –ZnO nanocapsules. • Formulation of SiO 2 –ZnO nanocapsules with Imatinib and Paclitaxel. • SiO 2 –ZnO nanoformulation kill primary and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). • SiO 2 –ZnO nanocapsules have huge clin- ical potential for targeted therapy. A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Hollow nanocapsules SiO 2 –ZnO Imatinib Paclitaxel Sustained release Therapy ABSTRACT Spherical hollow and mesoporous SiO 2 –ZnO nanocapsules were synthesized through sol-gel synthesis approach. Metabolic activity and biocompatibility of these nanocapules were tested and confrmed that SiO 2 –ZnO nano- capsules are not toxic. Small biomolecules and drug can be loaded into the nanoparticles since they are meso- porous with hollow core. Further these nanocapsules are capable of loading a huge amount of anticancer drugs such as imatinib and paclitaxel. The sustained release of the drugs demonstrated that these functionalized nanocapsules are useful for various therapeutic applications with precise release of drugs such as for the cancer therapy with low doses. To check the therapeutic effciency of these nanocapsules, HeLa cells (cervical cancer cell line), breast cancer cell lines such as MCF-7 (primary breast cancer) and MDA-MB-231 (triple negative breast cancer cell lines) were used for the study. For all cells the therapeutic effciencies obtained are better than the treatment effciencies obtained with the administration of the free drugs and it was found that the low doses are required for the treatment once the drug molecules are formulated with these nanocapsules. Results directed us that in future these nanocapsules may have a huge clinical potential to treat various diseases. 1. Introduction Proper design of nanocapsules for sustained release of drugs to a targeted area improves the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetic properties of various drug molecules as well as Therapeutic effciency [1–12]. Sustained releases of drugs have many advantages over other * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: paik.bme@iitbhu.ac.in, pradip.paik@gmail.com (P. Paik). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Chemistry and Physics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matchemphys https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchemphys.2022.126287 Received 26 January 2022; Received in revised form 10 May 2022; Accepted 16 May 2022