Biomaterials articles within Nature Nanotechnology

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  • Article |

    Ex vivo engineering of T cells for adoptive T-cell therapy without pre-activation is challenging and hinders therapeutic efficacy. Here, using nanowires, the delivery of microRNAs to primary naïve mouse and human CD8+ T cells without pre-activation for immune protection against pathogens is demonstrated.

    • Kristel J. Yee Mon
    • , Sungwoong Kim
    •  & Ankur Singh

  • Article |

    Biobased materials are of interest for many applications. Here the authors report insect-derived peptides that self-assemble into hollow nanocapsules through a gradient-driven, single-step, solvent exchange process, enabling the encapsulation of diverse cargoes with potential for drug delivery applications.

    • Haopeng Li
    • , Xuliang Qian
    •  & Jing Yu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Engineering the tunability of protein assembly in response to pH changes within a narrow range is challenging. Here the authors report the de novo computational design of pH-responsive protein filaments that exhibit rapid, precise, tunable and reversible assembly and disassembly triggered by small pH changes.

    • Hao Shen
    • , Eric M. Lynch
    •  & David Baker

  • Article |

    Manufacturing complexities, low yield and stability issues have hampered the clinical translation and scaling-up of immunoliposomes to meet the needs of pharmaceutical-grade products. The authors propose a one-step method of incorporating chimeric nanobodies tagged to hydrophobic linkers into liposomes, allowing targeted delivery of small-molecule anti-cancer drugs to tumours.

    • Md. Mofizur Rahman
    • , Jing Wang
    •  & Yuan Wan

  • Article |

    Insects have been shown to have the ability to detect different chemical agents. Here, the authors present a nanomaterial-assisted neuromodulation strategy to augment the chemosensory abilities of insects via photothermal effect and on-demand neurotransmitter release from cargo-loaded nanovehicles to augment natural sensory function.

    • Prashant Gupta
    • , Rishabh Chandak
    •  & Srikanth Singamaneni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A soft artificial retina with flexible phototransistors and three-dimensional liquid-metal microelectrodes is used to enhance proximity to retinal ganglion cells and minimize damage to soft tissue as well as improve charge injection for vision restoration in retinal degenerative in vivo models.

    • Won Gi Chung
    • , Jiuk Jang
    •  & Jang-Ung Park

  • Article |

    Protein degradation is a powerful tool for a range of applications and therapies. Here, a selective autophagy receptor mimetic against mutant p53 protein is developed to substantially elevate autophagy levels and to recognize and transport mutant proteins for autophagy-mediated degradation and anticancer effect.

    • Xiaowan Huang
    • , Ziyang Cao
    •  & Yunjiao Zhang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Insulin injections are not ideal and have an increased risk of hypoglycaemia. A preferable oral formulation based on silver sulfide quantum dots coated with a chitosan/glucose polymer is discussed, which has controlled insulin release and reduced risk of hypoglycaemia, and demonstrates applications in rodent and non-human primate models.

    • Nicholas J. Hunt
    • , Glen P. Lockwood
    •  & Victoria C. Cogger

  • Article |

    Nebulized mRNA delivery has broad therapeutic potential but has proven challenging. Here, the authors report on a modified lipid nanoparticle with improved conditions to allow nebulization and demonstrate its application for delivering mRNA to the lungs.

    • Allen Y. Jiang
    • , Jacob Witten
    •  & Daniel G. Anderson

  • Article |

    Nanoindentation of the microscale honeybee comb reveals a stiffness gradient that spans two orders of magnitude, which amplifies the catapult effect and facilitates solid particle repellency. By leveraging this, the study presents the fabrication of scaled-up, bioinspired stiffness-gradient elastomeric catapult-like soft actuators.

    • Wei Zhang
    • , Wei Jiang
    •  & Zuankai Wang

  • News & Views |

    In a major advancement for synthetic biology, dynamin A has been identified as a minimal component enabling cell division in synthetic cells, moving us one step nearer to realizing the ambition of creating synthetic life forms.

    • Oskar Staufer

  • Article |

    Nanoparticle penetration into tumours is an obstacle to cancer therapeutics. Here the authors show that the tumour vascular basement membrane constitutes a barrier that reduces nanoparticle delivery and demonstrate an immune-driven strategy to overcome the barrier, increasing nanoparticle movement into tumours.

    • Qin Wang
    • , Qirui Liang
    •  & Yucai Wang

  • Comment |

    Reducing cancer-related deaths can only happen with a better understanding of cancer biology and the development of improved, new therapeutics and delivery mechanisms. Nearly all cancer research is dependent upon the models being used, the model’s accuracy, and appropriate validation and benchmarking. Here the need for such considerations is discussed in line with the goal of the Cancer Moonshot.

    • Peter C. Searson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A synthetic nanocarrier based on DNA origami chassis offers control over valency, orientation and spatial arrangement of antibodies for simultaneously engaging immune signalling pathways, checkpoint inhibition and targeted co-stimulation in anticancer immunotherapy in vivo.

    • Klaus F. Wagenbauer
    • , Nhi Pham
    •  & Hendrik Dietz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    DNA nanotechnology is used to develop fully synthetic, programmable and printable 3D cell-culture matrices with stress-relaxation crosslinkers that encode (nano)mechanical stability. The hydrogel performs on par with solubilized animal-basement-membrane-derived cell-culture matrices.

    • Yu-Hsuan Peng
    • , Syuan-Ku Hsiao
    •  & Elisha Krieg

  • Research Briefing |

    Certain proteins have been optimized over millennia to exhibit shock-absorbing capabilities. To harness these capabilities, synthetic biology was used to incorporate the mechanosensitive protein talin into a hydrogel. The resulting talin shock-absorbing material (TSAM) retains the mechanical properties of talin and can absorb the impact of, as well as capture, supersonic projectiles.

  • Article |

    Optimizing the retention of drug delivery nanocarriers for improved cancer therapy has the potential to improve clinical outcomes. Here the authors screen 20 renal-clearable zwitterionic cyclodextrin-based nanocarriers for optimized biodistribution and tumour retention, demonstrating application in colorectal cancer models.

    • Min-Jun Baek
    • , Duy-Thuc Nguyen
    •  & Dae-Duk Kim

  • Article |

    Wearable resistive sensors for biometrics and machine interfacing are often non-specific. Here the authors report on the creation of hierarchically resistive skins for monitoring physical or physiological activities around the throat which, with the use of neural networking, can be used to distinguish different activities.

    • Shu Gong
    • , Xin Zhang
    •  & Wenlong Cheng

  • News & Views |

    Single blood vessel analysis by artificial intelligence (AI) reveals heterogeneous vascular permeability among different tumour types, which is leveraged in rationally designing protein nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems to achieve active trans-endothelial permeability in tumours.

    • Lutz Nuhn

  • Article |

    Systemic drug delivery to the bone marrow is limited, currently requiring high doses of drug, increasing the risk of side effects. Here, the authors report on the hitchhiking of drug nanoparticles in neutrophils using their natural homing to the bone marrow for targeted delivery, and demonstrate its application.

    • Zhenyu Luo
    • , Yichao Lu
    •  & Jian You

  • News & Views |

    Polymer-based nanomedicines have been engineered to ratiometrically deliver three different drugs to tumors, thereby bridging in vitro–in vivo correlation and producing synergistic therapeutic efficacy in multiple myeloma mouse models.

    • Alexandros Marios Sofias
    •  & Twan Lammers

  • Article |

    Although nanomedicine has shown benefits with respect to soluble drug administration, whether delivery of multiple drugs within the same nanocarrier has advantages over administration of single-drug nanomedicines or combination of free drugs at the same dosage is unclear. Here we use a bottlebrush prodrug platform to show that the delivery of three drugs in a synergistic combination in animal models outperforms other combinatorial approaches for multiple myeloma therapy.

    • Alexandre Detappe
    • , Hung V.-T. Nguyen
    •  & Jeremiah A. Johnson

  • News & Views |

    Combining equilibrium self-assembly with coupling mechanisms defying Newton’s third law allows for the design of programmable, time-varying, self-organized assemblies mimicking living matter.

    • Sabine H. L. Klapp

  • Research Briefing |

    Treatment with polycations was shown to selectively target abdominal fat in mice owing to the negatively charged extracellular matrix in adipose tissue. The polycations can inhibit the storage of lipids in fat cells, causing them to shrink and leading to improved metabolic health in obese mice.

  • Article |

    Accumulation of visceral fat, linked to adipocyte expansion and overgrowth, is the most detrimental aspect of obesity, and a major cause of obesity comorbidities. We develop a cationic nanomedicine based on polyamidoamine dendrimers that specifically targets visceral fat and shrinks adipocytes, inhibiting diet-induced obesity and improving metabolic health in murine models.

    • Qianfen Wan
    • , Baoding Huang
    •  & Li Qiang

  • Article |

    Downregulation of specific proteins named scramblases might enhance tumour immunosuppression. In this paper the authors first show that the scramblase Xrk8 is overexpressed in tumour cells upon treatment with chemotherapeutics, and then develop a nanomedicine platform for co-delivery of a cancer prodrug and an siRNA directed against the Xrk8 gene, showing therapeutic effect and enhanced immune response in animal tumour models.

    • Yuang Chen
    • , Yixian Huang
    •  & Song Li

  • Article |

    Activation of the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) can induce immunity in various cancer therapies, but delivery of STING agonists to tumours is challenging. Now a metal-based polymeric nanoparticle delivers STING agonists to tumours upon disruption of endothelial cells in tumour vasculature and targets tumour-associated macrophages, eliciting anti-tumour immune response in hard-to-treat cancer models.

    • Kaiting Yang
    • , Wenbo Han
    •  & Ralph R. Weichselbaum

  • Article |

    While neutrophils are the first line of defence against infections and inflammation, their unrestricted recruitment and constant activation might result in prolonged inflammation and sharpening of specific pathological conditions. Here the authors develop a strategy to specifically target activated, pro-inflammatory neutrophils and neutrophil–platelet complexes to deliver therapeutics in the context of a murine model of venous thrombosis.

    • Michelle A. Cruz
    • , Dillon Bohinc
    •  & Evi X. Stavrou

  • Article |

    Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is an immune modulator that was suggested as a potential treatment for sepsis, but its in vivo benefits are contradictory and its low bioavailability as a free drug hampers potential clinical translation. Here the authors show that using a lipid-coated nanoparticle to deliver NAD+ to the cell cytosol can effectively replenish the intracellular content of NAD+ and reduce the extent of the inflammatory response in mouse models of sepsis.

    • Mingzhou Ye
    • , Yi Zhao
    •  & Shaoqin Gong

  • Article |

    Activation of the STING pathway in antigen-presenting cells has been proposed as a strategy to stimulate the adaptive immune response against tumours, but its clinical application is hampered by the instability, low specificity and low cytosolic entry of natural STING agonists. Here the authors present a platform for targeted ultrasound-mediated cytosolic delivery of STING agonists that shows efficacy in different animal tumour models and improves the response to checkpoint blockade therapies.

    • Xuefeng Li
    • , Sina Khorsandi
    •  & Jacques Lux

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