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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Apr 29.
Published in final edited form as: Acc Chem Res. 2012 Aug 14;46(3):622–631. doi: 10.1021/ar300031y

Figure 4.

Figure 4

Impact of size and aspect ratio on ENMs cellular uptake. (A) Au nano-rods of different aspect ratio of 1.0 (CTAB-1), 2.0 (CTAB-2), 2.9 (CTAB-3) and 4.2 (CTAB-4), respectively. CTAB: cetyltrimethylammonium bromide;7 (B) Numbers of Au nano-rods within human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) cells;7 (C) TEM image showing the process of cellular uptake of Au nano-rods. The Au nano-rods wrapping into vesicle and further get into lysosome;7 (D) Sketch map for how size and shape affect membrane wrapping kenetics in cell endocytosis. Changes in nanoparticle size may affect the surface ligand density, ligand conformation, surface curvature and relative orientation during nanoparticles membrane docking. Changes in nanoparticle aspect ratio may affect the position of surface ligand and wrapping time.