Diffusion of single-walled carbon nanotube under physiological conditions

Single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) can be functionalized to target cells for drug delivery or cancer cells for their detection and therapy. Understanding their transport phenomena in vivo is a necessary step to unlock their medical potential. This work estimates the diffusion characteristics of SWNTs and their DNA-conjugated bio-hybrids under simulated or postulated physiological conditions using EPI-fluorescence microscopy (EFM). SWNT was shortened and dispersed in aqueous solution with the average length and diameter of 253 nm (+/-30.6 nm) and 1.6 nm (+/-0.34 nm), respectively, and tagged with a fluorophore, 1-pyrenebutanoic succinimidyl ester (PSE), through non-covalent pi stacking. DNA was attached to the PSE-SWNTs through carboxiimide based coupling procedure. Using the EFM, real-time videos were recorded under four different viscosities corresponding to four kinds of human body fluids: lymph (1.4 cP), bile (2.4 cP), blood (3-6 cP), and cytoplasm (10-30 cP), and processed to calculate diffusion coefficients based on random walk and speed. At 37 degreeC, diffusion coefficients of the SWNTs were estimated to be: 1.45 (+/-0.652) x 10(4) nm2/s (lymph), 0.91 (+/-0.205) x 10(4) nm2/s (bile), 0.59 (+/-0.179)x 10(4) nm2/s (blood), and 0.26 (+/-0.114)x 10(4) nm2/s (cytoplasm). Estimated diffusion coefficients of SWNT-DNA bio-hybrids were: 1.45 (+/-0.402) x 10(4) nm2/s (plasma), 0.62 (+/-0.212) x 10(4) nm2/s (bile), 0.41 (+/-0.142) x 10(4) nm2/s (blood), 0.38 (+/-0.257) x 10(4) nm2/s (cytoplasm). These outcomes should serve as key data for developing mathematical models of SWNT-based drug delivery, cell targeting, and its biodistribution.