Application of click chemistry in nanoparticle modification and its targeted delivery

Click chemistry is termed as a group of chemical reactions with favorable reaction rate and orthogonality. Recently, click chemistry is paving the way for novel innovations in biomedical science, and nanoparticle research is a representative example where click chemistry showed its promising potential. Challenging trials with nanoparticles has been reported based on click chemistry including copper-catalyzed cycloaddition, strain-promoted azide-alkyne cycloaddition, and inverse-demand Diels-Alder reaction.

Herein, we provide an update on recent application of click chemistry in nanoparticle research, particularly nanoparticle modification and its targeted delivery. In nanoparticle modification, click chemistry has been generally used to modify biological ligands after synthesizing nanoparticles without changing the function of nanoparticles. Also, click chemistry in vivo can enhance targeting ability of nanoparticles to disease site.

These applications in nanoparticle research were hard or impossible in case of traditional chemical reactions and demonstrating the great utility of click chemistry.