Fig. 4: Intracellular uptake of the arginine-containing thermo-responsive micelles. | Communications Chemistry

Fig. 4: Intracellular uptake of the arginine-containing thermo-responsive micelles.

From: Thermo-responsive targeting of polymeric micelles by controlling the cellular uptake based on the change of their surface arginine density

Fig. 4

A Colon-26 cells were incubated for 30 min at 37 and 42 °C with DiD-loaded micelles at 400 µg/mL in the culture medium containing 10% FBS, followed by measurement of the fluorescence intensity of DiD in the cell lysate, using a plate reader. The number of cells in each sample was normalized with the fluorescence of Calcein (a fluorescent indicator of live cells), and the ratio of cellular uptake was calculated from the fluorescence of each micelle-spiked lysate (mean ± SD, n = 4, Student’s t test). B Comparison of the cellular uptake between micelles with different Tcp and different number of the arginine units. intraArg-TRM(high) showed a Tcp higher than 42 °C and intraArg-TRM(many) contained more arginine moieties than intraArg-TRM (mean ± SD, n = 4, Student’s t test). C Illustrations of TRM, the mixed micelles, and intraArg-TRM to show the different levels of arginine density of the micelles. The mixed micelles were prepared from mixed polymer solutions of P(NIPAAm-co-ArgAAm)-b-PBMA and P(NIPAAm-co-AAm)-b-PBMA. D Effect of arginine density on micellar uptake. TRM and intraArg-TRM were taken as representing 0% and 100% mixing ratio, respectively (mean ± SD, n = 4, Student’s t test; versus 37 °C).

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