课题组发表Nano Today论文——氧化石墨烯靶向传递

Nanomaterials (NMs) as lung-targeted drug delivery vehicles have attracted great attentions. Recent studiesindicated that elastic or deformable property of NMs could play a vital role in biomedical applications.Herein, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) functionalized graphene oxide (GO-PVP) via a facile one-pot methodand PEGylated GO (GO-PEG) nanosheets (NSs) were synthesized at room temperature. By using rare earthelemental labeling method, we quantitatively revealed that GO-PVP NSs were targeting retention in thelung that after 4 h intravenous injection, the lung/liver and lung/spleen ratios in GO-PVP treated mice wereabout 230-fold and 30-fold higher of those in GO-PEG treated mice, respectively, especially a considerableamount was retained in the lower respiratory tract including pulmonary interstitium and alveolar region asfibril-like shapes. The florescence imaging and in situ confocal Raman microscopy combining with laserablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) elemental imaging analysis furtherconfirmed that a more amount of GO-PVP than GO-PEG retention in the pulmonary interstitium. Utilizingatomic force microscopy PeakForce quantitative nanomechanical mapping technique, the nanomechanicalproperty investigation shows that GO-PVP NSs are softer, more adhesive and deformable than GO-PEG NSs.Further, the molecular dynamics simulations illustrate that GO-PVP has deformable structure due to thehydrogen-bond interaction at basal plane between PVP and GO that cause GO-PVP surface roughness and topossess low solvent accessible surface area (SASA), comparatively, the GO-PEG owns relatively firmstructure and higher SASA. This study indicates that the well dispersion property and deformable structureof GO-PVP in the lung contribute to its filtration of the endothelial/epithelial barrier and retention in theinterstitium and alveolar region. Importantly, the study inspires us to design elastic or deformable NMs inresponse to the lung disease especially those have occurred in the lower respiratory tract.