Spiky tubular nanoparticles with low protein corona can realize efficient and non-destructive penetration through endothelial barrier

Upon intravascular applications, i.e., cancer treatment, nanoparticles (NPs) are required to deliver through blood circulation, sustain serum protein interactions, before they penetrate the blood vessels and reach targeted sites for payload drug release. For a delivery process as such, it is elusive and difficult to comprehend the morphological change of NP surface and evaluate associated effects on its targeted delivery. Herein, we used silica NPs with different surface modifications to demonstrate the morphological impact of NPs during the application of the NP-blood protein interaction, vascular endothelial cell penetration, subsequent targeted delivery and photodynamic therapy efficacy, and pursue high drug-load NPs with surface designs. Compared to solid and mesoporous NPs, we found the spiky tubular NPs reserved the NPs' antifouling properties (or shedding of “protein corona”), promoted better endothelial penetration and less destruction in vitro and in vivo. Such effects could be attributed to their spiky surface structures, which can limit the NP-protein interaction area and promote the NP-protein steric hindrance. Further in molecular simulations, we determined that the spiky tubular morphological modification on NPs enhanced the interaction free energy and lowered the amino acids number and the subsequent frequency in contacting with VE-cadherin of vascular endothelia. As a result, the spiky tubular NPs demonstrated its advantages in mitigating damages to VE-cadherin stability and endothelial cell integrity. Exploiting such spiky tubular surface modification, we can improve the NP delivery efficiency and prohibit the leakiness of vascular endothelia, helping address challenges faced by tumor migration in nanomedicine applications for cancer therapy.