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 TiO2 nanoparticles and their conjugates can penetrate into cultivated cells without any special transfection procedures. Oligonucleotides and their derivates were conjugated with the TiO2 nanoparticles, which were obtained as colloidal solutions at a concentration of TiO2 0.3M by TiCl4 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 TiO2 nanoparticles and their oligonucleotide conjugates into intracellular space without any auxiliary operations. Most other researches used electroporation techniques for similar purposes [1, 2, 5]. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd. 2009.