Premium
Fabrication of Various Structures of Nanostraw Arrays and Their Applications in Gene Delivery
Author(s) -
He Gen,
Chen HuiJiuan,
Liu Di,
Feng Yuping,
Yang Chengduan,
Hang Tian,
Wu Jiangming,
Cao Yuhong,
Xie Xi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced materials interfaces
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.671
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 2196-7350
DOI - 10.1002/admi.201701535
Subject(s) - nanotechnology , materials science , nanopore , nanoporous , fabrication , microfluidics , membrane , nanowire , template , interfacing , biomolecule , etching (microfabrication) , biosensor , nanobiotechnology , gene delivery , transfection , nanoparticle , computer science , chemistry , layer (electronics) , medicine , biochemistry , alternative medicine , pathology , computer hardware , gene
Nanowires have a wide variety of biomedical applications, including drug delivery, cellular manipulation, cellular interfacing, and biosensing. Specifically, hollow nanowire arrays, or “nanostraws,” are recently developed to penetrate cell membranes and to provide temporal and dose controlled delivery of biomolecules into the cells. The fabrication of nanostraw arrays uses nanoporous membranes as starting templates. However, nanoporous membranes with custom‐designed diameters and densities are often expensive or commercially unavailable. As a result, nanostraws reported in literature consist of a limited number of structures with restricted applications. In this work, a simple approach of preparing nanostraws with differing structures, including various diameters, lengths, and densities, is developed. Furthermore, the application of nanostraws in gene transfection is assessed. To fabricate the nanostraw arrays, O 2 plasma etching is applied to the template membrane with a desirable pore density to produce nanopores with matching sizes. Then, a series of nanostraws with controllable diameters, densities, and lengths is consistently fabricated. Finally, the nanostraws are integrated with a microfluidic device to penetrate the cell membrane or coupled with external techniques to achieve DNA transfection. This work demonstrates a simple yet versatile approach to fabricate a variety of hollow nanowires for broad biomedical device applications.