Dendronized semiconducting polymer as photothermal nanocarrier for remote activation of gene expression

• Main Authors: Lyu, Yan, Cui, Dong, Sun, He, Miao, Yansong, Duan, Hongwei, Pu, Kanyi
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Dendronized semiconducting polymer; Gene carriers
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/84415; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/43590
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Regulation of transgene systems is needed to develop innovative medicines. However, noninvasive remote control of gene expression has been rarely developed and remains challenging. We herein synthesize a near-infrared (NIR) absorbing dendronized semiconducting polymer (DSP) and utilize it as a photothermal nanocarrier not only to efficiently deliver genes but also to spatiotemporally control gene expression in conjunction with heat-inducible promoter. DSP has a high photothermal conversion efficiency (44.2 %) at 808 nm, permitting fast transduction of NIR light into thermal signals for intracellular activation of transcription. Such a DSP-mediated remote activation can rapidly and safely result in 25- and 4.5-fold increases in the expression levels of proteins in living cells and mice, respectively. This study thus provides a promising approach to optically regulate transgene systems for on-demand therapeutic transgene dosing.