Vertex Engineering of the Dodecaborate-Based Broadband Membrane Carriers

Perhalogenated boron clusters have been recently shown to possess promising membrane transport properties for a variety of cargo molecules; however, increased activity has also been correlated with notable toxicity, particularly in the case of iodinated variants. In this work, we report that replacing several of the halogen moieties with hydroxyl groups significantly reduces the cytotoxicity of the resulting perfunctionalized dodecaborate-based derivatives. Live cell imaging studies using a model peptide tagged with a fluorophore demonstrate that the transport potential of this new class of cluster-based carriers can be maintained even with vertex differentiation. Additional experiments using a lipophilic probe suggest that cluster-cargo interactions in solution can lead to altered delivery outcomes for certain dyes used in live cell staining.