Linked Life Data

19710626

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/19710626

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
30
pubmed:dateCreated
2009-8-27
pubmed:abstractText
Advances in genomics continue to fuel the development of therapeutics that can target pathogenesis at the cellular and molecular level. Typically functional inside the cell, nucleic acid-based therapeutics require an efficient intracellular delivery system. One widely adopted approach is to complex DNA with a gene carrier to form nanocomplexes via electrostatic self-assembly, facilitating cellular uptake of DNA while protecting it against degradation. The challenge lies in the rational design of efficient gene carriers, since premature dissociation or overly stable binding would be detrimental to the cellular uptake and therapeutic efficacy. Nanocomplexes synthesized by bulk mixing showed a diverse range of intracellular unpacking and trafficking behavior, which was attributed to the heterogeneity in size and stability of nanocomplexes. Such heterogeneity hinders the accurate assessment of the self-assembly kinetics and adds to the difficulty in correlating their physical properties to transfection efficiencies or bioactivities. We present a novel convergence of nanophotonics (i.e. QD-FRET) and microfluidics to characterize the real-time kinetics of the nanocomplex self-assembly under laminar flow. QD-FRET provides a highly sensitive indication of the onset of molecular interactions and quantitative measure throughout the synthesis process, whereas microfluidics offers a well-controlled microenvironment to spatially analyze the process with high temporal resolution (~milliseconds). For the model system of polymeric nanocomplexes, two distinct stages in the self-assembly process were captured by this analytic platform. The kinetic aspect of the self-assembly process obtained at the microscale would be particularly valuable for microreactor-based reactions which are relevant to many micro- and nano-scale applications. Further, nanocomplexes may be customized through proper design of microfludic devices, and the resulting QD-FRET polymeric DNA nanocomplexes could be readily applied for establishing structure-function relationships.
pubmed:grant
pubmed:commentsCorrections
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:chemical
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:issn
1940-087X
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:dateRevised
2011-11-17
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2009
pubmed:articleTitle
Combining QD-FRET and microfluidics to monitor DNA nanocomplex self-assembly in real-time.
pubmed:affiliation
Mechanical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, USA.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S., Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural, Video-Audio Media