Nanocomposites Consisting of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles and Oligonucleotides

The use of various nanoparticles is a promising way to solve the current problem of drug delivery in medicine and biology. Nanocomposites consisting of titanium dioxide and oligonucleotides noncovalently attached to nanoparticles through the polylysine linker (TiO₂·PL-DNA) have been designed to deliver of DNA fragments into cells. Three forms of TiO₂ nanoparticles (amorphous, anatase, and brookite) were used for construction of nanocomposites. The size, morphology, and chemical composition of TiO₂ nanoparticles and TiO₂·PL-DNA nanocomposites were characterized. DNA fragments in the proposed nanocomposites were shown to retain their ability to form complementary complexes. TiO₂·PL-DNA nanocomposites independently on the form of nanoparticles were shown by confocal microscopy to penetrate into HeLa cells without any transfection agents and physical impact. The presented type of nanocomposites can be applied in the thriving technology of drug delivery to achieve high therapeutic and biological efficacy.