Enzyme-responsive protein/polysaccharide supramolecular nanoparticles

Biocompatible and enzyme-responsive supramolecular assemblies have attracted more and more interest in biomaterial fields, and find many feasible applications especially in the controlled drug release at specific sites where the target enzyme is located. In this work, novel supramolecular nanoparticles were successfully constructed from two biocompatible materials, i.e. a cyclic polysaccharide named sulfato-β-cyclodextrin (SCD) and a protein named protamine, through non-covalent association, and fully characterized by means of atomic force microscopy (AFM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Significantly, the disassembly of the resulting nanoparticles can respond especially to trypsin over other enzymes. Owing to their trypsin-triggered disassembly behaviors, these nanoparticles can efficiently release the encapsulated model substrate in a controlled manner. That is, the model substrate can be encapsulated inside the nanoparticles with a high stability and released when treated with trypsin.