Self‐Powered Intracellular Drug Delivery by a Biomechanical Energy‐Driven Triboelectric Nanogenerator

Abstract

Nondestructive, high‐efficiency, and on‐demand intracellular drug/biomacromolecule delivery for therapeutic purposes remains a great challenge. Herein, a biomechanical‐energy‐powered triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG)‐driven electroporation system is developed for intracellular drug delivery with high efficiency and minimal cell damage in vitro and in vivo. In the integrated system, a self‐powered TENG as a stable voltage pulse source triggers the increase of plasma membrane potential and membrane permeability. Cooperatively, the silicon nanoneedle‐array electrode minimizes cellular damage during electroporation via enhancing the localized electrical field at the nanoneedle–cell interface and also decreases plasma membrane fluidity for the enhancement of molecular influx. The integrated system achieves efficient delivery of exogenous materials (small molecules, macromolecules, and siRNA) into different types of cells, including hard‐to‐transfect primary cells, with delivery efficiency up to 90% and cell viability over 94%. Through simple finger friction or hand slapping of the wearable TENGs, it successfully realizes a transdermal biomolecule delivery with an over threefold depth enhancement in mice. This integrated and self‐powered system for active electroporation drug delivery shows great prospect for self‐tuning drug delivery and wearable medicine.

High‐Aspect‐Ratio Nanostructured Surfaces as Biological Metamaterials

“…Liu et al combined solid silicon nanoneedles with a biomechanical‐energy‐powered triboelectric generator, which converts body movement into electrical pulses. They claim tip‐field enhancement increases the effective electric field at the membrane–nanoneedle interface, increasing the uptake of a membrane‐impermeable dye (propidium iodide) from an efficiency of 22% (needles without pulses) to 85% . As well as various molecular weights of a fluorescently tagged glucan (Dextran‐FITC), they also delivered siRNA into human breast cancer 38 cells (MCF‐7), with a reported efficiency of 82%.…”

Nanoneedle Platforms: The Many Ways to Pierce the Cell Membrane

“…In most of related cases, immortal cell lines, especially cancer cell lines (e.g., HeLa, MCF7, etc. ), [ 113 ] adherent cell lines (e.g., CHO, HEK 293, etc. ), [ 114 ] or some specific cell lines such as fibroblasts (NIH3T3), [ 77 ] cardiomyocytes (HL‐1), [ 115 ] are chosen as model cells to validate the nanoneedle‐mediated intracellular applications.…”

“…Liu et al developed a solid nanoneedle array‐electroporation system for intracellular drug delivery in vivo (Figure 8e,f). [ 113 ] In this system, nanoneedle array coupled with a counter electrode was applied on skin surface, followed by electroporation to drive biomolecular delivery into tissue. The system was powered by a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), where the electrical supply transformed from body movement such as simple finger friction or hand slapping by TENG.…”

Ultrasound-responsive highly biocompatible nanodroplets loaded with doxorubicin for tumor imaging and treatment in vivo

“…Therefore, it is impossible to further evaluate and improve the treatment plan over the course of treatment. Some self-powered drug delivering systems and the sensors for microfluidics strategy designed to solve this problem (Nie et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2019). Ultrasound-guided drug delivery systems can result in reversible permeabilization of the plasma membrane of cells through ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD), enabling drugs to effectively enter tumor cells.…”