Single Wall Carbon Nanotube (SWCNT) as an Intracellular Gene Delivery Cargo*

A SWCNT is truly one-dimensional nanoscale object, possessing unique optical, electronic, and mechanical properties. Earlier works on SWCNT toxicity and size allowed for widespread use of SWCNTs in biological studies. SWCNTs bind to biomolecules, proteins and nucleic acids via Coulomb and other interactions, both on the specific and nonspecific level, this motivated many drug and gene delivery studies which demonstrated that SWCNTs, functionalized with polymers and biological molecules may serve as highly efficient and easily targeted delivery agents.
In this study, ssDNA labeled with Alexa Fluor 546 dye was used to functionalize SWCNT. This hybrid matched a complementary ssDNA which was labeled with Alexa Fluor 488 dye. Double-stranded DNA hybridization on the solvent-exposed sticky ends was monitored by Forster Resonance Energy Transfer technique. The modulation of the SWCNT optical response due to DNA conformational charge motion before and after hybridization was also investigated.