Artificial membrane fusion systems promise the promoted drug delivery yet have limited applications in cells.  To resolve this dilemma, systems that provide non-leaky fusion without requiring pre-modification on cellular membranes are needed. We herein report on one such system whereby short cationic peptides induce non-leaky, pH-sensitive, complete membrane fusion without requiring pre-modified membranes, leading to pH-selective cytoplasmic delivery of cell-impermeable cargo in vitro as demonstrated with analogous bacterial and mammalian cell studies.  When applied to bacteria, our system significantly improves killing of <i>E. coli</i> by antibiotic which is otherwise inactive.  This work may aid in the development of fusion-based drug delivery system for targeting cells in pH-dependent style.

Short cationic peptides induce pH-sensitive non-leaky membrane fusion to enable cytoplasmic delivery of cell-impermeable compounds

255th National Meeting (2018)

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