Issue 8, 2013

Uptake of poly(2-hydroxypropylmethacrylamide)-coated gold nanoparticles in microvascular endothelial cells and transport across the blood–brain barrier

Abstract

The facile and modular functionalization of gold nanoparticles makes them versatile tools in nanomedicine, for instance, photothermal therapy, contrast agents or as model nanoparticles to probe drug-delivery mechanisms. Since endothelial cells from various locations in the body exhibit unique phenotypes we quantitatively examined the amount of different sized poly(2-hydroxypropylmethacrylamide)-coated gold nanoparticles internalized into primary human dermal endothelial cells or human brain endothelial cells (hCMEC/D3) by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) and visualized the nanoparticles using light and electron microscopy. Poly(2-hydroxypropylmethacrylamide)-coated gold nanoparticles exhibited high uptake into brain endothelial cells and were used to examine transport mechanisms across the blood–brain barrier using a well-established in vitro model of the blood–brain barrier. Our results demonstrate that 35 nm-sized gold nanoparticles were internalized best into human brain endothelial cells by a flotillin-dependent endocytotic pathway. The uptake into the cells is not correlated with transport across the blood–brain barrier. We demonstrated that the surface modification of gold nanoparticles impacts the internalization process in different cells. In addition, to evaluating toxicity and uptake potential of nanoparticles into cells, the transport properties across cell barriers are important criteria to classify nanoparticle properties regarding targeted delivery of drugs.

Graphical abstract: Uptake of poly(2-hydroxypropylmethacrylamide)-coated gold nanoparticles in microvascular endothelial cells and transport across the blood–brain barrier

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Feb 2013
Accepted
08 Apr 2013
First published
02 May 2013
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Biomater. Sci., 2013,1, 824-833

Uptake of poly(2-hydroxypropylmethacrylamide)-coated gold nanoparticles in microvascular endothelial cells and transport across the blood–brain barrier

C. Freese, R. E. Unger, R. C. Deller, M. I. Gibson, C. Brochhausen, H. Klok and C. J. Kirkpatrick, Biomater. Sci., 2013, 1, 824 DOI: 10.1039/C3BM60050E

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