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Release Of Hydrophobic Molecules From Polymer Micelles Into Cell Membranes Revealed By Forster Resonance Energy Transfer Imaging, Hongtao Chen, Sungwon Kim, Shuyi Wang, Kinam Park, Ji-Xin Cheng

Other Nanotechnology Publications

it is generally assumed that polymeric micelles, upon administration into the blood stream, carry drug molecules until they are taken up into cells followed by intracellular release. The current work revisits this conventional wisdom. The study using dual-labeled micelles containing fluorescently labeled copolymers and hydrophobic fluorescent probes entrapped in the polymeric micelle core showed that cellular uptake of hydrophobic probes was much faster than that of labeled copolymers. This result implies that the hydrophobic probes in the core are released from micelles in the extracellular space. Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) imaging and spectroscopy were used to monitor this process …