A preliminary study on the interaction between Asn-Gly-Arg (NGR)-modified multifunctional nanoparticles and vascular epithelial cells

Liu, Chunxi; Liu, Tingxian; Yu, Xiaoyue; Gu, Yizhu

Based on the previously constructed TPIC, we further systematically studied the interaction between the carriers and targeted cells and their intracellular delivery process to determine whether NGR used the CvME to transport TPIC into CD13 positive cells. The results indicated that TPIC influenced the distribution of CD13 on HUVEC through the interaction between CD13 and NGR, causing CD13 clustering, leading to the co-localization of CD13 and CAV1 and internalization via the CvME. Additionally, this internalization was not dependent on the enzyme activity of CD13 but was inhibited by cholesterol depletion. In this paper, we elucidated the intracellular mechanisms of multifunctional selfassembled nanocarriers and first proposed that NGR can mediate nanocarriers entering the cell through CvME. The elucidation of the mechanism was crucial for understanding the structurebioactivity relationships of gene-loaded nanoparticles and was important to make a contribution to direct the design of novel drug delivery systems.