Written by: WANG Xue
Translated by: YANG Yue
Edited by: William Mosteller
Date: 5-4
Harbin Institute of Technology News (WANG Xue/Text) Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Professor HE Qiangs research team in the Key Laboratory of Microsystems and Microstructure Manufacturing of the Ministry of Education has made the latest progress in the application of synthetic swimming nanomachines in single-cell mechanical perforation. The results, entitled "Gold Nanoshells Functionalized Tubular Polymer Multilayer Nomadic Nanomachines for Unicellular Photo-mechanical Perforation" are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (Impact Factor 14.357). Associate Professor WU Zhiguang and Professor HE Qiang are the co-authors.
Single-cell membrane perforation has become a hot spot for research in recent years because of its potential applications in intracellular imaging, gene editing, and artificial insemination. Conventional chemical and physical methods, such as the use of calcium ions to increase membrane permeability, electroporation, and photoporation, can be used for large numbers of cell membrane perforation, but it is difficult to achieve the membrane perforation of a targeted single cell. Swimming nanomechanics is a kind of nano-system that can convert the chemical energy or other forms of energy stored in the surrounding environment into self-propelled motion. It can perform controllable motion in a variety of biological fluids and is expected to achieve the active targeting of cells and conduct mechanical perforation. The team combined the self-assembly of a nanopore template auxiliary layer with gold seed growth to construct a tubular polymer multilayer machine with gold nanoshell functionalization. Under exogenous ultrasonic field, the polymer tubular nanomachine can move autonomously in the fluid, actively targeting a single cell. It was found that with the synergistic effect of the ultrasonic propulsion force and the self-thermophoretic force produced by the photothermal effect of tail gold nanoshells, it could mechanically open the cell membrane within 0.1 second, allowing exogenous substances to rapidly penetrate the cells through the openings. This nanomachine overcomes the problem of the propulsive force of previous swimming nanomachines being insufficient to open the cell membrane. In the future, it is expected to achieve drug delivery, intracellular imaging, and cell surgery by active targeting of single cells.
The Link Address of the Thesis：https://pubs.acs.org.ccindex.cn/doi/10.1021/jacs.8b13882
