Konczak Lukasz, Narkiewicz-Michalek Jolanta, Pastorin Giorgia, Panczyk Tomasz
Institute of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow.
Department of Chemistry, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland.
Int J Nanomedicine. 2016 Nov 7;11:5837-5849. doi: 10.2147/IJN.S117858. eCollection 2016.
This work deals with the role of intermolecular interactions in the stability of a carbon nanotube (CNT) capped by functionalized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs). The importance of such a system is due to its potential application as a pH-controlled drug carrier. Our preliminary experimental studies showed that fabrication of such a nanobottle/nanocontainer is feasible and it is possible to encapsulate the anticancer drug cisplatin inside the inner space of a CNT and seal its ends by functionalized AuNPs. The expected behavior, that is, detachment of AuNPs at acidic pH and the release of cisplatin, was, however, not observed. On the other hand, our theoretical studies of chemically identical system led to the conclusion that the release of cisplatin at acidic pH should be observed. Therefore, in this work, a deeper theoretical analysis of various factors that could be responsible for the disagreement between experimental and theoretical results were performed. The study found that the major factor is a large dispersion interaction component acting between CNT and AuNP in solution in the case of the experimental system. This factor can be controlled to some extent by tuning the system size or the ratio between AuNP diameter and CNT diameter. Thus, such kind of a pH-sensitive drug carrier is still of great interest, but its structural parameters need to be properly adjusted.
这项工作研究了分子间相互作用在由功能化金纳米粒子（AuNPs）包覆的碳纳米管（CNT）稳定性中的作用。该系统的重要性在于其作为pH值可控药物载体的潜在应用。我们的初步实验研究表明，制造这种纳米瓶/纳米容器是可行的，并且有可能将抗癌药物顺铂封装在碳纳米管的内部空间中，并用功能化金纳米粒子密封其端部。然而，并未观察到预期的行为，即在酸性pH值下金纳米粒子的脱离和顺铂的释放。另一方面，我们对化学性质相同系统的理论研究得出结论，应该观察到在酸性pH值下顺铂的释放。因此，在这项工作中，对可能导致实验结果与理论结果不一致的各种因素进行了更深入的理论分析。研究发现，主要因素是在实验系统中溶液中碳纳米管和金纳米粒子之间存在的较大色散相互作用成分。可以通过调整系统尺寸或金纳米粒子直径与碳纳米管直径之间的比例在一定程度上控制这个因素。因此，这种pH敏感药物载体仍然具有很大的吸引力，但其结构参数需要适当调整。
