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Letter

Nature Nanotechnology 2, 47–52 (1 January 2007) | doi:10.1038/nnano.2006.170

In vivo biodistribution and highly efficient tumour targeting of carbon nanotubes in mice

Zhuang Liu , Weibo Cai , Lina He , Nozomi Nakayama , Kai Chen , Xiaoming Sun , Xiaoyuan Chen & Hongjie Dai

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) exhibit unique size, shape and physical properties that make them promising candidates for biological applications. Here, we investigate the biodistribution of radio-labelled SWNTs in mice by in vivo positron emission tomography (PET), ex vivo biodistribution and Raman spectroscopy. It is found that SWNTs that are functionalized with phospholipids bearing polyethylene-glycol (PEG) are surprisingly stable in vivo. The effect of PEG chain length on the biodistribution and circulation of the SWNTs is studied. Effectively PEGylated SWNTs exhibit relatively long blood circulation times and low uptake by the reticuloendothelial system (RES). Efficient targeting of integrin positive tumour in mice is achieved with SWNTs coated with PEG chains linked to an arginine–glycine–aspartic acid (RGD) peptide. A high tumour accumulation is attributed to the multivalent effect of the SWNTs. The Raman signatures of SWNTs are used to directly probe the presence of nanotubes in mice tissues and confirm the radio-label-based results.