Artificial polymeric receptors on the cell surface promote the efficient cellular uptake of quantum dots

In our previous paper, secondary-amine appended cationic polymer 1 was used as a scaffold to display artificial receptors on a cell surface (R. Kamitani et al., ChemBioChem, 2009, 10, 230). This polymer can be retained on the cell surface for more than 30 min before being slowly internalized into the cells. In this study, our aim is to achieve the efficient internalization of quantum dots (QDs) into target cells via artificial receptors on the polymer. As a receptor molecule, N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) moieties were introduced into the polymer, and GlcNAc binding protein-displaying QDs were used as a ligand. We found that ligand-presenting QDs could be internalized effectively into cells via polymer-mediated endocytosis, whereas QDs were not internalized into untreated cells. These data suggest that our method based on cell-surface engineering using polymers affords a new approach to the delivery of various poorly permeable nanoparticles into cells.