Protective effect of mesoporous silica particles on encapsulated folates.

Mesoporous silica particles (MSPs) are considered suitable supports to design gated materials for the encapsulation of bioactive molecules. Folates are essential micronutrients which are sensitive to external agents that provoke nutritional deficiencies. Folates encapsulation in MSPs to prevent degradation and to allow their controlled delivery is a promising strategy. Nevertheless, no information exists about the protective effect of MSPs encapsulation to prevent their degradation. In this work, 5-formyltetrahydrofolate (FO) and folic acid (FA) were entrapped in MSPs functionalized with polyamines, which acted as pH-dependent molecular gates. The stability of free and entrapped vitamins af…