Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Soft Matter. 2017 Mar 1;13(9):1873-1880. doi: 10.1039/c6sm02464e.
The cell interior is a crowded chemical space, which limits the diffusion of molecules and organelles within the cytoplasm, affecting the rates of chemical reactions. We provide insight into the relationship between non-specific intracellular diffusion and cytoskeletal integrity. Quantum dots entered the cell through microinjection and their spatial coordinates were captured by tracking their fluorescence signature as they diffused within the cell cytoplasm. Particle tracking revealed significant enhancement in the mobility of biocompatible quantum dots within fibrosarcoma cells versus their healthy counterparts, fibroblasts, as well as in actin destabilized fibroblasts versus untreated fibroblasts. Analyzing the displacement distributions provided insight into how the heterogeneity of the cell cytoskeleton influences intracellular particle diffusion. We demonstrate that intracellular diffusion of non-specific nanoparticles is enhanced by disrupting the actin network, which has implications for drug delivery efficacy and trafficking.
细胞内部是一个拥挤的化学空间，这限制了细胞质中分子和细胞器的扩散，从而影响化学反应的速率。我们深入了解了非特异性细胞内扩散与细胞骨架完整性之间的关系。量子点通过显微注射进入细胞，通过跟踪它们在细胞质内扩散时的荧光特征来获取它们的空间坐标。粒子追踪显示，与健康的成纤维细胞相比，在纤维肉瘤细胞以及在肌动蛋白不稳定的成纤维细胞中，生物相容性量子点的迁移率显著增强，与未经处理的成纤维细胞相比也是如此。分析位移分布情况可以深入了解细胞细胞骨架的异质性如何影响细胞内粒子的扩散。我们证明，通过破坏肌动蛋白网络可以增强非特异性纳米颗粒的细胞内扩散，这对药物输送效率和运输具有重要意义。
