The Impact of Protein Corona Formation on the Macrophage Cellular Uptake and Biodistribution of Spherical Nucleic Acids

Abstract

The effect of serum protein adsorption on the biological fate of Spherical Nucleic Acids (SNAs) is investigated. Through a proteomic analysis, it is shown that G‐quadruplexes templated on the surface of a gold nanoparticle in the form of SNAs mediate the formation of a protein corona that is rich in complement proteins relative to SNAs composed of poly‐thymine (poly‐T) DNA. Cellular uptake studies show that complement receptors on macrophage cells recognize the SNA protein corona, facilitating their internalization, and causing G‐rich SNAs to accumulate in the liver and spleen more than poly‐T SNAs in vivo. These results support the conclusion that nucleic acid sequence and architecture can mediate nanoparticle–biomolecule interactions and alter their cellular uptake and biodistribution properties and illustrate that nucleic acid sequence is an important parameter in the design of SNA therapeutics.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Feb 14, 2017
Source ID
10.1002/smll.201603847

Entities

People

  • Alyssa B. Chinen
  • Caroline H. Ko
  • Chad Mirkin
  • Chenxia M. Guan

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Northwestern University

Tags

Readers

  • Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry
  • Solar Physics

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology
  • Biotechnology - Cancer Biotech