Carrillo-Carrion, Carolina , Martinez, Raquel , Polo, Ester , Tomas-Gamasa, Maria , Destito, Paolo , Ceballos, Manuel , Pelaz, Beatriz , Lopez, Fernando , Mascarenas, Jose L. , del Pino, Pablo
No
ACS Nano
Article
Científica
18.027
4.611
26/10/2021
000711790600133
We describe a microporous plasmonic nanoreactor to carry out designed near-infrared (NIR)-driven photothermal cyclizations inside living cells. As a proof of concept, we chose an intramolecular cyclization that is based on the nucleophilic attack of a pyridine onto an electrophilic carbon, a process that requires high activation energies and is typically achieved in bulk solution by heating at similar to 90 degrees C. The core-shell nanoreactor (NR) has been designed to include a gold nanostar core, which is embedded within a metal-organic framework (MOF) based on a polymer-stabilized zeolitic imidazole framework-8 (ZIF-8). Once accumulated inside living cells, the MOF-based cloak of NRs allows an efficient diffusion of reactants into the plasmonic chamber, where they undergo the transformation upon near-IR illumination. The photothermal-driven reaction enables the intracellular generation of cyclic fluorescent products that can be tracked using fluorescence microscopy. The strategy may find different type of applications, such as for the spatio-temporal activation of prodrugs.
bio-orthogonal chemistry; nanocomposites; thermoplasmonics; MOF; intracellular thermocyclization; thermolabile protecting groups