An abundance of papers in literature have shown promising results for in vitro and in vivo bioimaging due to low toxicity and deep tissue imaging capability of UCNP. More recently, diagnostics and therapeutic efficacy of nanomaterial in cells is under investigation. Due to the growing interest of cell diagnostic work, cell transfection methods of these nanomaterials are of interest. Scavenger class A receptors mediated endocytosis has been demonstrated with gold nanoparticles coated with highly dense spherical nucleic acid (SNA-AuNPs). Highly dense spherical nucleic acids interact with scavenger class A receptors on the cell membrane found in many cell lines, sequentially endocytosis is observed. This strong interaction is hypothesized to be because of the 3D orientation of DNA and strong negative charge, however it is shown to be independent of the nanoparticle core. The aim of this project is to use spherical nucleic acids with upconverting nanoparticle cores (SNA-UCNP) to transfect cells. SNA-AuNPs have shown to agglomerate in the late endosome of cells, and a result degrade. To overcome this challenge, the project aims to coat these SNA-UCNP with additional coatings to puncture the late endosomes. Possible coatings to promote endosomal escape include cell penetrating peptides, cationic polymers or liposomes. In addition to coating mentioned above, coatings also integrate polyethylene glycol to promote monodispersity, increased biocompatibility and immunogenicity in the cell. Figure below illustrates current coatings in the works. The first few experiments aim to observe the transfection of solely SNA- UCNP. Cy3 labelled SNA will allow DNA and UNCP to be tracked and imaged independently within in FL83B mouse liver cell in the aims of determining where this complex translocates to upon entering the cell. Based on these results, further coatings schemes will be investigated.

Evaluating the transfection efficacy of spherical nucleic acid coated upconverting nanoparticles in cells for in vitro imaging and daignostics

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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