Issue 11, 2020

Designer DNA–silica/carbon nanotube nanocomposites for traceable and targeted drug delivery

Abstract

Due to their unique properties like porosity, high water content, softness and biocompatibility, hydrogels are of great interest for biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and drug delivery. We describe a programmable drug delivery system that is based on highly biocompatible SiNP/CNT–DNA nanocomposites, which can be synthesized in a highly modular fashion from DNA-functionalized carbon nanotubes and silica nanoparticles via enzymatic rolling circle amplification. Specific molecular recognition properties were implemented into the materials by DNA sequence design, as demonstrated by incorporation of GC/CG-rich stem loop and aptamer motifs that enable selective binding of intercalating drugs and cell surface receptors, respectively. In a proof-of-concept study we demonstrate the utility of this approach by targeting nanocomposites loaded with the anthracycline drug doxorubicin to HeLa cancer cells. Our observation that these designer materials work more efficiently than the pure drug alone suggests that further developments of the concept might be useful to selectively trigger more complex cellular pathways.

Graphical abstract: Designer DNA–silica/carbon nanotube nanocomposites for traceable and targeted drug delivery

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Dec 2019
Accepted
17 Feb 2020
First published
26 Feb 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2020,8, 2250-2255

Designer DNA–silica/carbon nanotube nanocomposites for traceable and targeted drug delivery

Y. Hu and C. M. Niemeyer, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2020, 8, 2250 DOI: 10.1039/C9TB02861G

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements