Tan Huaxin, Liu Sisi, He Yaolin, Cheng Guofeng, Zhang Yu, Wei Xiaojie, Hu Lidan
The Key Laboratory of Ecological Environment and Critical Human Diseases Prevention of Hunan Province Department of Education, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, China.
School of Public Health, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang, China.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2021 Nov 16;9:780223. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.780223. eCollection 2021.
Goldnanoclusters (GNCs) have become a promising nanomaterial for bioimaging because of their unique optical properties and biocompatibility. In this study, lycosin-I peptide, which possesses a highly selective anticancer activity by affecting the permeability of cancer cell membrane, was firstly modified for constructing fluorescent GNCs (LGNCs) for bioimaging of tumor cells. The obtained LGNCs exhibited strong near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence, which can be further enhanced by the peptide-induced aggregation and selectively stained three cancerous cell lines over normal cell lines with low intrinsic toxicity. After uptake by tumor cells, LGNC aggregates can be depolymerized into ultrasmall nanoclusters by high-level glutathione (GSH) and realize the nuclear targeting translocation. Collectively, our work suggests the potential of natural active biomolecules in designing NIR fluorescent GNCs for bioimaging.
金纳米团簇（GNCs）因其独特的光学性质和生物相容性，已成为一种有前景的生物成像纳米材料。在本研究中，首先对具有通过影响癌细胞膜通透性而具有高度选择性抗癌活性的lycosin-I肽进行修饰，以构建用于肿瘤细胞生物成像的荧光金纳米团簇（LGNCs）。所获得的LGNCs表现出强烈的近红外（NIR）荧光，该荧光可通过肽诱导的聚集进一步增强，并且与正常细胞系相比，能以低内在毒性选择性地对三种癌细胞系进行染色。肿瘤细胞摄取后，LGNC聚集体可被高水平的谷胱甘肽（GSH）解聚为超小纳米团簇，并实现核靶向转运。总的来说，我们的工作表明天然活性生物分子在设计用于生物成像的近红外荧光金纳米团簇方面具有潜力。
