Intracellular self-assembly of nanoparticles for enhancing cell uptake

Chemical Communications


http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/cc/c2cc34899c

The authors present an interesting method to increase the retention of radiolabeled nanoparticles for tumor imaging.  They took a small radiolabeled peptide sequence that cleaves at certain junctions in the presence of furin and subsequently condenses to form a dimer, then self-assembles into nanoparticles.  The key here is that furin is a protein that's overexpressed in certain cancer cells, so the radiolabeled nanoparticles would only self-assemble in cancer cells.