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Abstract Delivering magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) into mitochondria provides a facile approach to manipulate cell life because mitochondria play essential roles in cell survival and death. Here we report the use of enzyme‐responsive peptide assemblies to deliver MNPs into mitochondria of live cells. The mitochondria‐targeting peptide (Mito‐Flag), as the substrate of enterokinase (ENTK), assembles with MNPs in solution. The MNPs that are encapsulated by Mito‐Flag peptides selectively accumulate to the mitochondria of cancer cells, rather than normal cells. The mitochondrial localization of MNPs reduces the viability of the cancer cells, but hardly affects the survival of the normal cell. This work demonstrates a new and facile strategy to specifically transport MNPs to the mitochondria in cancer cells for exploring the applications of MNPs as the targeted drug for biomedicine and cancer therapy.
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This content will become publicly available on January 1, 2026
Production, labeling, and applications of micro- and nanoplastic reference and test materials
The challenges inherent to the extraction of micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) from the environment and the limited range of commercially available MNPs have prompted an increasing number of researchers to generate in-house reference and test MNPs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2145532
- PAR ID:
- 10593240
- Publisher / Repository:
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Environmental Science: Nano
- ISSN:
- 2051-8153
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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