Mimicking Vesicle Fusion To Make Gold Nanoparticles Easily Penetrate Cells

rtoz (2530056) writes A special class of tiny gold particles can easily slip through cell membranes, making them good candidates to deliver drugs directly to target cells. A new study from MIT materials scientists reveals that these nanoparticles enter cells by taking advantage of a route normally used in vesicle-vesicle fusion, a crucial process that allows signal transmission between neurons. MIT engineers created simulations of how a gold nanoparticle coated with special molecules can penetrate a membrane. Paper (abstract; full text paywalled).

plating effect

[jblues]

As folks who've experimented with the anti-biotic and anti-viral effects of silver can attest, its important that we do indeed start with nano-particles. Bigger particles tend to have a plating effect and tattoo under the skin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Particles are baloney

[toQDuj]

Except that the stripy particles used here are not real. Stellacci has been claiming to make these, but there are big doubts over the evidence:
http://www.timeshighereducatio... [timeshighe...tion.co.uk]

Re:Particles are baloney

[toQDuj]

Additional links: A big discussion has taken place on PubPeer following a pre-publication arXiv release of a paper (full disclosure: I'm a co-author on the second version of this paper). The paper is well worth a read, and should be coming out soon in PLoS One.

ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6812 [arxiv.org]
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publicatio... [pubpeer.com]

Re:

[sribe]

Oh come on, man! Did you even read that article? The person questioning him is Prof. Moriarity! Once an evil villain, always an evil villain!

Re:

[toQDuj]

Actually, I've been working with Prof. Moriarty and he's great fun. He has some "sixty symbols" and "numberphile" videos up on youtube if you are interested.

Re:

[Badge 17]

Taking a look at the paper, it doesn't appear that these results are highly dependent on the striped morphology, which, I agree, is dubious. These guys aren't using that, they're claiming a "checkerboard" shape.

I haven't read through the whole literature on this - are *all* of the patterns crap? Are there checkerboards, or just noise + STM artifacts?

I had to read that title 3 times

[viperidaenz]

First it looked like Vehicle Fusion, then Testicle Fusion.

Urgh

[wonkey_monkey]

Mimicking Vesicle Fusion To Make Gold Nanoparticles Easily Penetrate Cells

I've no idea what that means but I feel dirty after reading it.

It's been done

[Sir Holo]

It's been done already. [nature.com] Open access.

That is, non-toxic transfection and organelle targeting of a combination "marker & delivery vehicle" into live cells, confirmed by both optical and electron imaging. Special nanodiamonds in this case.

(Full disclosure: It was me.)