Discrete Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes for Versatile Intracellular Transport of Functional Biomolecular Complexes

Abstract

In recent years, carbon nanotubes have emerged as a potentially revolutionary material with numerous uses in biomedical applications. Compared to other nanoparticles, discrete multi-walled carbon nanotubes (dMWCNTs) have been shown to exhibit advantageous characteristics such as high surface area to volume ratio, biocompatibility, and unique chemical and physical properties. dMWCNTs can be modified to load various molecules such as proteins and nucleic acids and are capable of crossing the cell membrane, making them attractive delivery vehicles for biomolecules. To investigate this, we measured the impact of dMWCNTs on cell proliferation. Furthermore, we used electron microscopy to demonstrate that dMWCNTs enter the cytoplasm of mammalian cells via an endocytosis-like process. And lastly, we employed various in vitro reporter and gene assays to demonstrate dMWCNT-mediated delivery of peptides, mRNA, siRNA, and dsRNA. Our work here has helped further characterize dMWCNTs as a versatile delivery platform for biomolecular cargo.