Geng Yan, Dalhaimer Paul, Cai Shenshen, Tsai Richard, Tewari Manorama, Minko Tamara, Discher Dennis E
NanoBioPolymers and Molecular & Cell Biophysics Lab, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
Nat Nanotechnol. 2007 Apr;2(4):249-55. doi: 10.1038/nnano.2007.70. Epub 2007 Mar 25.
Interaction of spherical particles with cells and within animals has been studied extensively, but the effects of shape have received little attention. Here we use highly stable, polymer micelle assemblies known as filomicelles to compare the transport and trafficking of flexible filaments with spheres of similar chemistry. In rodents, filomicelles persisted in the circulation up to one week after intravenous injection. This is about ten times longer than their spherical counterparts and is more persistent than any known synthetic nanoparticle. Under fluid flow conditions, spheres and short filomicelles are taken up by cells more readily than longer filaments because the latter are extended by the flow. Preliminary results further demonstrate that filomicelles can effectively deliver the anticancer drug paclitaxel and shrink human-derived tumours in mice. Although these findings show that long-circulating vehicles need not be nanospheres, they also lend insight into possible shape effects of natural filamentous viruses.
球形颗粒与细胞以及在动物体内的相互作用已得到广泛研究，但形状的影响却很少受到关注。在此，我们使用被称为丝状胶束的高度稳定的聚合物胶束组装体，来比较具有相似化学性质的柔性细丝与球体的运输和细胞内转运情况。在啮齿动物中，丝状胶束在静脉注射后在循环系统中持续存在长达一周。这比它们的球形对应物长约十倍，并且比任何已知的合成纳米颗粒更持久。在流体流动条件下，球体和短丝状胶束比长丝更容易被细胞摄取，因为长丝会因流动而伸展。初步结果进一步证明，丝状胶束可以有效地递送抗癌药物紫杉醇，并使小鼠体内源自人类的肿瘤缩小。尽管这些发现表明长循环载体不一定是纳米球，但它们也为天然丝状病毒可能的形状效应提供了见解。
