The Endocytosis and Intracellular Trafficking of Multifunctional Lipid Nanoparticles in Live Cells

Dr.  Tieqiao Zhang
Department of Physics 
Boise State University

The cellular uptake and the following intracellular trafficking are important factors affecting the efficiency of artificial nanocapsule systems as drug delivery systems. Understanding the mechanism of the processes therefore is very important for improving the design. In this work, we investigated the endocytosis and intracellular trafficking processes of lipid nanoparticles by live M21 cells using SEM, AFM and fluorescence microscopy. The movements of the nanoparticles were quantitatively analyzed with digital filtering and fitting methods. Two diffusion modes were observed for the intracellular trafficking process. Fast movement with large steps is attributed to active transportation by microtubule while slow movement in limited space is attributed to free diffusion.