Pentacle gold-copper alloy nanocrystals: a new system for entering male germ cells in vitro and in vivo.

ABSTRACT: Gold-based nanocrystals have attracted considerable attention for drug delivery and biological applications due to their distinct shapes. However, overcoming biological barriers is a hard and inevitable problem, which restricts medical applications of nanomaterials in vivo. Seeking for an efficient transportation to penetrate biological barriers is a common need. There are three barriers: blood-testis barrier, blood-placenta barrier, and blood-brain barrier. Here, we pay close attention to the blood-testis barrier. We found that the pentacle gold-copper alloy nanocrystals not only could enter GC-2 cells in vitro in a short time, but also could overcome the blood-testis barrier and enter male germ cells in vivo. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the entrance efficiency would become much hig

SUBMITTER: Lin Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5175129 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature