Department of Biochemistry, The University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QU, UK.
J Am Chem Soc. 2012 Mar 7;134(9):4100-3. doi: 10.1021/ja300537u. Epub 2012 Feb 27.
A major challenge in nanomaterial science is to develop approaches that ensure that when administered in vivo, nanoparticles can be targeted to their requisite site of action. Herein we report the first approach that allows for cell-specific uptake of nanomaterials by a process involving reprogramming of the behavior of the ubiquitous protein corona of nanomaterials. Specifically, judicious surface modification of quantum dots with a small molecule that induces a protein-misfolding event in a component of the nanoparticle-associated protein corona renders the associated nanomaterials susceptible to cell-specific, receptor-mediated endocytosis. We see this chemical approach as a new and general method for exploiting the inescapable protein corona to target nanomaterials to specific cells.
纳米材料科学的一个主要挑战是开发方法，以确保在体内给药时，纳米颗粒可以靶向其所需的作用部位。在此，我们报告了第一个允许纳米材料通过涉及重新编程纳米材料普遍存在的蛋白质外壳的行为的过程进行细胞特异性摄取的方法。具体而言，通过用小分子对量子点进行明智的表面修饰，该小分子会在与纳米颗粒相关的蛋白质外壳的成分中诱导蛋白质错误折叠事件，从而使相关的纳米材料易受细胞特异性、受体介导的内吞作用的影响。我们将这种化学方法视为利用不可避免的蛋白质外壳将纳米材料靶向特定细胞的一种新的通用方法。
