An examination of the ability of titanium dioxide nanoparticles and its conjugates with oligonucleotides to penetrate into eucariotis cells

In this study we examine the possibility that TiO 2 nanoparticles and their conjugates can penetrate into cultivated cells without any special transfection procedures. Oligonucleotides and their derivates were conjugated with the TiO 2 nanoparticles, which were obtained as colloidal solutions at a concentration of TiO 2 0.3M by TiCl 4 hydrolysis. The electronic microscopy of various cell cultures (KCT, Vero, and MDCK) treated with nanoparticle solutions (20 µg/µl) showed that nanoparticles could enter the cells and accumulate in the vacuoles and phagosomes and form inclusions in cytoplasm. Thus, we demonstrated the penetration of TiO 2 nanoparticles and their oligonucleotide conjugates into intracellular space without any auxiliary operations. Most other researches used electroporation techniques for similar purposes [1, 2, 5].