PEGylation and active targeting are two most common surface chemistry strategies used in enhancing tumor targeting efficiencies of inorganic nanoparticles (NPs ). However, how these two strategies quantitatively influence their follow-up interactions with cancer cells such as membrane binding, cellular uptakes and intracellular dynamics have not been thoroughly and quantitatively investigated under the same conditions. To address these questions, we compared the cellular uptake and intracellular dynamics of luminescent silver NPs (AgNPs) coated by a PEG molecule modified and a c-RGD peptide, respectively. The c-RGD-AgNPs showed 20 times higher cellular uptake efficiency than the PEG coated one in the first three hour incubation and intracellular dynamics of c-RGD-AgNPs is also faster than that of PEG-AgNPs. This study helps quantitatively understand the surface chemistry effects on the in vitro behavior of NPs and is of fundamental importance of their applications as imaging agents or drug delivery vectors.

Cellular uptake and intracellular dynamics of luminescent plasmonic silver nanoparticles with different surface chemistries

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.