Amino acid coating enables micromotor operation in physiological conditions
Abstract
Physiological environment with high ionic strength will quench the propulsion of micro/nanomotors (MNMs) by suppressing electric double layers, especially for those motors based on electrolyte diffusiophoresis and electrophoresis. Herein, we demonstrate an efficient, general, and simple strategy to improve the ion tolerance of light-driven titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) micromotors with amino acid surface modification. Compared to the bare TiO 2 counterpart, L-arginine (Arg)-treated TiO 2 micromotors display over 200 times higher ion tolerance, which is mainly attributed to the increased surface conductivity. This simple ion tolerance improvement strategy can also be applicable to other motors driven by self-electrophoresis. As TiO 2 is an efficient sonosensitizer, we combined the light-guiding ability with ultrasound to generate reactive oxygen species to effectively induce in situ tumor apoptosis. We envision that this simple amino acid surface modification can not only provide a solution for MNMs to tolerate the ionic environment but also open up opportunities for further biomedical and translational research of MNMs.
Article Details
Journal Info
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Sciences
Authors (12)
Jia Sun
National Medical Products Administration Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University
Yusen Ding
Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong
Yicheng Ye
National Medical Products Administration Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University
Fei Wang
Hao Tian
Shanghai Research Institute of Petrochemical Technology
Jiamiao Jiang
National Medical Products Administration Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University
Huaan Li
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Delivery and Guangdong Provincial Engineering Center of Topical Precise Drug Delivery System, Center for Drug Research and Development, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University
Junbin Gao
National Medical Products Administration Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University
Haixin Tan
National Medical Products Administration Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University
Fei Peng
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University
Jinyao Tang
Department of Chemistry
Yingfeng Tu
National Medical Products Administration Key Laboratory for Research and Evaluation of Drug Metabolism and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University