The Effects of Design Parameters on Nanoparticle Cellular Uptake, Nuclear Transport and Accumulation

Studying the effects of the physicochemical properties of nanomaterials on cellular uptake, toxicity, and exocytosis can provide the foundation for designing safer and more effective nanoparticles for clinical applications. However, an understanding of the effects of these properties on subcellular transport, accumulation and distribution remains limited. The present study investigates the effects of surface density and particle size of semiconductor quantum dots on cellular uptake as well as nuclear transport kinetics, retention, and accumulation. The current work illustrates that cellular uptake and nuclear accumulation of nanoparticles depends on surface density of the nuclear localization signal peptides with nuclear transport reaching a plateau at 20% surface nuclear localization signal peptide density in as little as 30 minutes. These intracellular nanoparticles have no effects on cell viability up to 72 hours post treatment. These findings will set a foundation for engineering more sophisticated nanoparticle systems for imaging and manipulating genetic targets in the nucleus.