High drug-loading gold nanoclusters for responsive glucose control in type 1 diabetes

Abstract

Background Diabetes is one of the biggest medical challenges worldwide. The key to efficiently treat type 1 diabetes is to accurately inject insulin according to the blood glucose levels. In this study, we aimed to develop an intelligent insulin-releasing gold nanocluster system that responds to environmental glucose concentrations. Results We employed gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) as a novel carrier nanomaterial by taking advantage of their high drug-loading capacity. We prepared AuNCs in the protection of bovine serum albumin, and we decorated AuNCs with 3-aminophenylboronic acid (PBA) as a glucose-responsive factor. Then we grafted insulin onto the surface to obtain the glucose-responsive insulin-releasing system, AuNC-PBA-Ins complex. The AuNC-PBA-Ins complex exhibited high sensitivity to glucose concentration, and rapidly released insulin in high glucose concentration in vitro. In the type 1 diabetic mouse model in vivo, the AuNC-PBA-Ins complex effectively released insulin and regulated blood glucose level in the normoglycemic state for up to 3 days. Conclusions We successfully developed a phenylboronic acid-functionalized gold nanocluster system (AuNC-PBA-Ins) for responsive insulin release and glucose regulation in type 1 diabetes. This nanocluster system mimics the function of blood glucose regulation of pancreas in the body and may have potential applications in the theranostics of diabetes. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12951-019-0505-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Engineering Metal Nanoclusters for Targeted Therapeutics: From Targeting Strategies to Therapeutic Applications

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Identification of key genes in type 2 diabetes‐induced erectile dysfunction rats with stem cell therapy through high‐throughput sequencing and bioinformatic analysis

“…DM, especially type 2 diabetes, is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases all over the world and has become the third threat to public health, after cardiovascular diseases and cancers (Zhang et al., 2019). It has been reported that ED is a common and yet underestimated complication of DM (Shiferaw et al., 2020).…”

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