A DNA tetrahedron is employed for efficient delivery of doxorubicin into drug-resistant breast cancer cells. The drug delivered with the DNA nanoconstruct is considerably cytotoxic, whereas free doxorubicin is virtually non-cytotoxic for the drug-resistant cells. Thus, the DNA tetrahedron, made of the inherently natural and biocompatible material, can be a good candidate for the drug carrier to overcome MDR in cancer cells.
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a cytotoxic treatment using singlet oxygen produced by photosensitizers. Approved porphyrinoid PDT still suffers from a lack of robust production methods and low water solubility. Methylene blue (MB) is a good candidate for the PDT drug, because the dye is an effective photosensitizer, can be easily synthesized, and is already being used in other clinical fields. However, its poor cell/tissue penetration and low stability against the reducible biological conditions should be addressed by using a proper delivery vehicle. Here, we employed a DNA tetrahedron, a self-assembled nanostructure as the carrier for intracellular delivery of MB by taking advantage of the DNA binding property of the photosensitizer and demonstrated photo-induced cytotoxicity by the MB delivered by the DNA nanocarrier. We also evaluated the PDT potency of the MB-loaded DNA nanoconstruct in vivo tumor model to suppress tumor growth.
Although rolling circle amplification (RCA) is an efficient method to produce DNA materials for biomedical applications, it does not yield nano-sized products suitable for intracellular delivery. We here provide the ways to control the size of RCA products and show a potential application of the size-controlled DNA nanoparticles.
Correction for ‘Utilizing the bioorthogonal base-pairing system of l-DNA to design ideal DNA nanocarriers for enhanced delivery of nucleic acid cargos’ by Kyoung-Ran Kim et al., Chem. Sci., 2014, 5, 1533–1537.
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