Conspectus All living systems require biochemical barriers. As a consequence, all drugs, imaging agents, and probes have targets that are either on, in, or inside of these barriers. Fifteen years ago, we initiated research directed at more fully understanding these barriers and at developing tools and strategies for breaching them that could be of use in basic research, imaging, diagnostics and medicine. At the outset of this research and to a lesser extent now, the “rules” for drug design biased the selection of drug candidates to mainly those with an intermediate and narrow log P. At the same time, it was becoming increasingly apparent that Nature had long ago developed clever strategies to circumvent these “rules”. In 1988, for example, independent reports appeared documenting the otherwise uncommon passage of a protein (HIV-Tat) across a membrane. A subsequent study called attention to a highly basic domain in this protein (Tat49–57) being responsible for its cellular entry. This conspicuously contradictory behavior, i.e., a polar, highly charged peptide passing through a non-polar membrane, set the stage for learning how Nature had gotten around the current “rules” of transport. As elaborated in our studies and discussed herein, the key strategy used in Nature rests in part on the ability of a molecule to change its properties as a function of microenvironment, being a polarity chameleon – i.e., being polar in a polar milieu and relatively non-polar in a non-polar environment. Because this research originated in part with the protein Tat and its basic peptide domain, Tat49–57, the field focused heavily on peptides, even limiting its nomenclature to names such as ‘cell-penetrating peptides,’ ‘cell-permeating peptides,’ ‘protein transduction domains,’ and ‘membrane translocating peptides’ to note a few. Starting in 1997, through a systematic reverse engineering approach, we established that the ability of Tat49–57 to enter cells is not a function of its peptide backbone, but rather the number and spatial array of its guanidinium groups. These function-oriented studies allowed one to design more effective peptidic agents and to think beyond the confines of peptidic systems to new and even more effective non-peptidic agents. Because the function of passage across a cell membrane is not limited to or even best achieved with the peptide backbone, we referred to these agents by their shared function, i.e., ‘cell-penetrating molecular transporters’. The scope of this molecular approach to breaching biochemical barriers has expanded remarkably in the past 15 years, enabling or enhancing the delivery of a wide range of cargos into cells and across other biochemical barriers; creating new tools for research, imaging, and diagnostics; and introducing new therapies into clinical trials.

Functional delivery of mRNA to tissues in the body is key to implementing fundamentally new and potentially transformative strategies for vaccination, protein replacement therapy, and genome editing, collectively affecting approaches for the prevention, detection, and treatment of disease. Broadly applicable tools for the efficient delivery of mRNA into cultured cells would advance many areas of research, and effective and safe in vivo mRNA delivery could fundamentally transform clinical practice. Here we report the stepeconomical synthesis and evaluation of a tunable and effective class of synthetic biodegradable materials: charge-altering releasable transporters (CARTs) for mRNA delivery into cells. CARTs are structurally unique and operate through an unprecedented mechanism, serving initially as oligo(α-amino ester) cations that complex, protect, and deliver mRNA and then change physical properties through a degradative, charge-neutralizing intramolecular rearrangement, leading to intracellular release of functional mRNA and highly efficient protein translation. With demonstrated utility in both cultured cells and animals, this mRNA delivery technology should be broadly applicable to numerous research and therapeutic applications.

Inositol pyrophosphates, such as diphospho-myo-inositol pentakisphosphates (InsP7), are an important family of signalling molecules, implicated in many cellular processes and therapeutic indications including insulin secretion, glucose homeostasis and weight gain. To understand their cellular functions, chemical tools such as photocaged analogues for their real-time modulation in cells are required. Here we describe a concise, modular synthesis of InsP7 and caged InsP7. The caged molecule is stable and releases InsP7 only on irradiation. While photocaged InsP7 does not enter cells, its cellular uptake is achieved using nanoparticles formed by association with a guanidinium-rich molecular transporter. This novel synthesis and unprecedented polyphosphate delivery strategy enable the first studies required to understand InsP7 signalling in cells with controlled spatiotemporal resolution. It is shown herein that cytoplasmic photouncaging of InsP7 leads to translocation of the PH-domain of Akt, an important signalling-node kinase involved in glucose homeostasis, from the membrane into the cytoplasm.

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is a major cause of chemotherapy failure in the clinic. Drugs that were once effective against naïve disease subsequently prove ineffective against recurrent disease, which often exhibits an MDR phenotype. MDR can be attributed to many factors; often dominating among these is the ability of a cell to suppress or block drug entry through upregulation of membrane-bound drug efflux pumps. Efflux pumps exhibit polyspecificity, recognizing and exporting many different types of drugs, especially those whose lipophilic nature contributes to residence in the membrane. We have developed a general strategy to overcome efflux-based resistance. This strategy involves conjugating a known drug that succumbs to efflux-mediated resistance to a cell-penetrating molecular transporter, specifically, the cell-penetrating peptide (CPP), d-octaarginine. The resultant conjugates are discrete single entities (not particle mixtures) and highly water-soluble. They rapidly enter cells, are not substrates for efflux pumps, and release the free drug only after cellular entry at a rate controlled by linker design and favored by target cell chemistry. This general strategy can be applied to many classes of drugs and allows for an exceptionally rapid advance to clinical testing, especially of drugs that succumb to resistance. The efficacy of this strategy has been successfully demonstrated with Taxol in cellular and animal models of resistant cancer and with ex vivo samples from patients with ovarian cancer. Next generation efforts in this area will involve the extension of this strategy to other chemotherapeutics and other MDR-susceptible diseases.

A highly versatile and step-economical route to a new class of guanidinium-rich molecular transporters and evaluation of their ability to complex, deliver, and release siRNA are described. These new drug/probe delivery systems are prepared in only two steps, irrespective of length or composition, using an organocatalytic ring-opening co-oligomerization of glycerol-derived cyclic carbonate monomers incorporating either protected guanidine or lipid side chains. The resultant amphipathic co-oligomers are highly effective vehicles for siRNA delivery, providing an excellent level of target protein suppression (>85%). These new oligocarbonates are nontoxic at levels required for cell penetration and can be tuned for particle size. Relative to the previously reported methyl(trimethylene)carbonate (MTC) scaffold, the ether linkage at C2 in the new transporters markedly enhances the stability of the siRNA/co-oligomer complexes. Both hybrid co-oligomers, containing a mixture of glycerol- and MTC-derived monomers, and co-oligomers containing only glycerol monomers are found to provide tunable control over siRNA complex stability. On the basis of a glycerol and CO2 backbone, these new co-oligomers represent a rapidly tunable and biocompatible siRNA delivery system that is highly effective in suppressing target protein synthesis.

Inorganic polyphosphate (polyP) is an often-overlooked biopolymer of phosphate residues present in living cells. PolyP is associated with many essential biological roles. Despite interest in polyP’s function, most studies have been limited to extracellular or isolated protein experiments, as polyanionic polyP does not traverse the nonpolar membrane of cells. To address this problem, we developed a robust, readily employed method for polyP delivery using guanidinium-rich oligocarbonate transporters that electrostatically complex polyPs of multiple lengths, forming discrete nanoparticles that are resistant to phosphatase degradation and that readily enter multiple cell types. Fluorescently labeled polyPs have been monitored over time for subcellular localization and release from the transporter, with control over release rates achieved by modulating the transporter identity and the charge ratio of the electrostatic complexes. This general approach to polyP delivery enables the study of intracellular polyP signaling in a variety of applications.

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