Topographical binding to mucosa-exposed cancer cells: pollen-mimetic porous microspheres with tunable pore sizes

Mucoadhesives have been perceived as an effective approach for targeting the mucosa-associated diseases, which relied on the adhesive molecules to enhance the specificity. Here, topographical binding is proposed based on the fabrication of surface pore size tunable pollen-mimetic microspheres with phase separation and electrospray technology. We proved that microspheres with large-pores (pore size of 1005 ± 448 nm) were the excellent potential candidate for the mucoadhesives, as they not only possessed better adhesion ability, but also could topographically bind cervical cancer cells. Our methods of topographical binding offered a new way of designing the mucoadhesives for treating the mucosa-associated diseases.