The Role of Ligand Density and Size in Mediating Quantum Dot Nuclear Transport

Abstract

Studying the effects of the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials on cellular uptake, toxicity, and exocytosis can provide the foundation for designing safer and more effective nanoparticles for clinical applications. However, an understanding of the effects of these properties on subcellular transport, accumulation, and distribution remains limited. The present study investigates the effects of surface density and particle size of semiconductor quantum dots on cellular uptake as well as nuclear transport kinetics, retention, and accumulation. The current work illustrates that cellular uptake and nuclear accumulation of nanoparticles depend on surface density of the nuclear localization signal (NLS) peptides with nuclear transport reaching a plateau at 20% surface NLS density in as little as 30 min. These intracellular nanoparticles have no effects on cell viability up to 72 h post treatment. These findings will set a foundation for engineering more sophisticated nanoparticle systems for imaging and manipulating genetic targets in the nucleus.

Guiding Principles for a Successful Multidisciplinary Research Collaboration

“…Over the last 4 years, we have worked together to characterize and evaluate these drugs through shared funding from the Collaborative Health Research Program in Canada. Through this joint project, we have learned to be effective collaborators with one another, started to publish our results [4], and through the years, we have shared with one another experiences of good and bad collaborations. While there are a number of excellent commentaries to describe how teams in research work together [5,6], we thought an article that specifically focuses on practical tips that are important in building strong team dynamics and ensuring that the multidisciplinary research project is conducted in an efficient and productive manner in an academic setting would be useful for guiding other academic collaborators.…”

Mechanistic Approaches of Internalization, Subcellular Trafficking, and Cytotoxicity of Nanoparticles for Targeting the Small Intestine

“…Tang et al observed that nuclear delivery of quantum dots can be enhanced by covering them with NLS sequences at 20% density (158). Furthermore, it was confirmed that cellular and nuclear internalization was size-dependent using semiconductor quantum dot nanoparticles.…”

Dual‐peptide functionalized nanoparticles for therapeutic use

“…They found that there was a plateau of nuclear transport with any ratio greater than 20% of NLS peptides on the surface of the particle. [98] 2. Another aspect of dual peptide functionalized nanoparticles that is not very well analyzed or understood is the effect of different ratios of the two ligands on biological activity.…”