Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) hold much promise for biomedical applications due to their unique optical response upon absorption of near-IR light.
In order to make these SWNTs biocompatible, scientists in Japan have designed a SWNT/DNA hybrid which can be coated with cationic poly(L-lysine) grafted with polyethylene glycol. The overall system shows good uptake in cells compared to the same system in the absence of polyethylene glycol.
The authors are now extending their experiments to a mouse cancer model.
Read this HOT Nanoscale article in full:
Enhanced cell uptake via non-covalent decollation of a single-walled carbon nanotube-DNA hybrid with polyethylene glycol-grafted poly(L-lysine) labeled with an Alexa-dye and its efficient uptake in a cancer cell
Tsuyohiko Fujigaya, Yuki Yamamoto, Arihiro Kano, Atsushi Maruyama and Naotoshi Nakashima
Nanoscale, 2011
DOI: 10.1039/C1NR10635J
