Clickable, Biocompatible, and Fluorescent Hybrid Nanoparticles for Intracellular Delivery and Optical Imaging

We report it general and facile approach for the fabrication of it new class of near monodisperse hybrid nanoparticles via RAFT polymerization and self-assembly in water. Furthermore, we combine a fluorescent inorganic silica core with a biocompatible polymer shell and it terminal unit susceptible to facile conjugations via click chemistry. A tailoring of the weight fractions of both components allows a tuning of the size of the formed aggregates Fluorescent properties and the crosslinking into an organic-inorganic hybrid network Lire realized by copolymerizing dye-functionalized monomer 1-pyrenebutyl acrylate and a trimethoxysilane-carrying one, (3-acryloxypropyl)-trimethoxysilane. The potential of these stabilized and fluorescent nanoparticles as biocompatible carriers for intracellular delivery is demonstrated via in vitro experiments on lung cancer cells.