Organic Nanoflowers from a Wide Variety of Molecules Templated by a Hierarchical Supramolecular Scaffold

Abstract

Nanoflowers (NFs) are flowered-shaped particles with overall sizes or features in the nanoscale. Beyond their pleasing aesthetics, NFs have found a number of applications ranging from catalysis, to sensing, to drug delivery. Compared to inorganic based NFs, their organic and hybrid counterparts are relatively underdeveloped mostly because of the lack of a reliable and versatile method for their construction. We report here a method for constructing NFs from a wide variety of biologically relevant molecules (guests), ranging from small molecules, like doxorubicin, to biomacromolecules, like various proteins and plasmid DNA. The method relies on the encapsulation of the guests within a hierarchically structured particle made from supramolecular G-quadruplexes. The size and overall flexibility of the guests dictate the broad morphological features of the resulting NFs, specifically, small and rigid guests favor the formation of NFs with spiky petals, while large and/or flexible guests promote NFs with wide petals. The results from experiments using confocal fluorescence microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy provides the basis for the proposed mechanism for the NF formation.

Single Crystal Organic Nanoflowers

“…Carbon, elemental metals and compounds of metals with fifth and sixth group elements were the principal constituents of such assemblies. Single crystal organic nanoflowers have not been discovered so far to the best of our knowledge, though, single crystal inorganic nanoflowers 4 assemblies of organic nanoflowers 5 , 6 , hybrid organic-inorganic nanoflowers using copper (II) ions 2 , 7 diphenylalanine 8 , N,N′-diphenyl-N,N′-bis(1-naphthyl)-1,1′-biphenyl-4,4′-diamine (NPB) 9 and DNA based nanoflowers have been reported recently 10 – 12 .…”

Enhancement of Immune Responses by Guanosine-Based Particles in DNA Plasmid Formulations against Infectious Diseases

“…Since the SHS particles are made from small-molecule guanosine derivatives, they offer the potential of combining the best attributes of nanovaccines with those of small-molecule immunomodulators [56, 57]. Furthermore, the fact that the SHS particles can encapsulate other biomedically relevant molecules like proteins and polysaccharides [28], expands the potential of this work to develop more elaborated vaccine formulations and related immunotherapies.…”

“…G-derivative ImAG (Figure 1(a)) was synthesized and characterized as previously reported [24, 27, 28]. A solution of 0.303 mM of ImAG SGQ was warmed in a water bath at 40°C for ~3 minutes in order to promote the formation of the SHS particles and added at a final concentration of 0.1515 mM into corresponding DNA plasmid formulations (Figure 1(b)).…”

“…We decided to evaluate these particles for immunotherapeutic applications, mainly motivated by the feasible synthesis of ImAG and the simple preparation of the SHS. Furthermore, these mesoglobular structures with a size of ~1 μ m in a suspension-like solution can interact with a variety of cargo from small molecules (e.g., doxorubicin) to large DNA plasmids by electrostatic interactions on the SHS surface as previously described in 2016 [28]. Under scanning electron microscopy (SEM), SHS particles are visualized as organized colloidal particles with a porous gel-like architecture that can exhibit flower-shape, depending on the size and nature of the cargo (Figure S1).…”

Investigation on the Adsorption-Interaction Mechanism of Pb(II) at Surface of Silk Fibroin Protein-Derived Hybrid Nanoflower Adsorbent

“…Among these materials, organic-inorganic hybrid nanoflowers (HNFs) is newly developed functional material and has received considerable attention due to its distinctive physiochemical characteristics. By binding inorganic nanoparticles to organic components, HNFs show properties of simple product synthesis and high biomolecule efficiency comparing with the pure organic nanoflowers [29] and inorganic nanoflowers [30]. Since Ge et al [31] first reported the preparation of BSA-incorporated Cu 3 (PO 4 ) 2 nanoflowers, biomaterials-based HNFs have attracted increasing interest and many researches have focused on their biochemical applications of biosensing [32][33][34], biocatalysis [35][36][37], and drug delivery [38].…”