Journal Article

Emulsion-oriented assembly for Janus double-spherical mesoporous nanoparticles as biological logic gates

Hung, Chin-Te, Wang, Shangfeng, Elzatahry, Ahmed, Chen, Liang, Liu, Minchao, Duan, Linlin, Zhao, Tiancong, Lin, Runfeng, Cai, Weiluo, Li, Xiaomin, Zhao, Dongyuan, Zhang, Fan

2023

Overview

The ability of Janus nanoparticles to establish biological logic systems has been widely exploited, yet conventional non/uni-porous Janus nanoparticles are unable to fully mimic biological communications. Here we demonstrate an emulsion-oriented assembly approach for the fabrication of highly uniform Janus double-spherical MSN&mPDA (MSN, mesoporous silica nanoparticle; mPDA, mesoporous polydopamine) nanoparticles. The delicate Janus nanoparticle possesses a spherical MSN with a diameter of ~150 nm and an mPDA hemisphere with a diameter of ~120 nm. In addition, the mesopore size in the MSN compartment is tunable from ~3 to ~25 nm, while those in the mPDA compartments range from ~5 to ~50 nm. Due to the different chemical properties and mesopore sizes in the two compartments, we achieve selective loading of guests in different compartments, and successfully establish single-particle-level biological logic gates. The dual-mesoporous structure enables consecutive valve-opening and matter-releasing reactions within one single nanoparticle, facilitating the design of single-particle-level logic systems.Large biomolecules cannot be loaded into conventional Janus nanoparticles with small mesopores, preventing the establishment of efficient logic-gate systems in single Janus nanoparticles. Now, an emulsion-oriented assembly approach has been shown to fabricate Janus double-spherical nanoparticles with dual-tunable mesopores, enabling the design of various single-particle-level logic systems.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: Assembly / Biomolecules / Chemical properties / Compartments / Emulsions / Fabrication / Logic circuits / Nanoparticles / Silica