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. 2020 Feb 18;10(8):3594–3611. doi: 10.7150/thno.40318

Figure 4.

Figure 4

The mucoadhesive-to-penetrating feature and colon cancer cells target efficiency of sOKGM-PS delivery system. (A) CLSM images of fOKGM-PS-Cy3 and sOKGM-PS-Cy3 microspheres (red) in colon mucosal surfaces layer (green) after 1 hour of rectal administration. Scale bar, 100 µm. The CLSM scanning images of Z axis tomography of wholemount colon tissue were shown in bottom panels. Mucus layer was labeled between dashed lines. (B) Three-dimensional images showing that PS-Cy3 NPs (red) penetrate through the mucus layer (green) and sOKGM-Cy3 (red) microspheres adhere to the mucus layer (green) until 60 mins. Scale bar: 50 µm. (C) Fluorescence images showing localization of PS (labeled by Cy3, red) and miR-31i (labeled by FAM, green) in AOM-DSS induced tumor cells after 12 hours of sOKGM-PS-miR-31i/Cy3 rectal and gavage administration. Scale bar, 100 µm. (D and E) FACS assay showing cellular uptake of PS-Cy3 and PS-TP-Cy3 NPs in HCT116 (D) and LoVo (E) cells with time. The results are reported as the mean ± standard deviation, n = 3, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 (F) CLSM images showing intracellular localization of PS-miR-31i/Cy3 and PS-TP-miR-31i/Cy3 NPs in HCT116 cells after 12 hours of incubation with 48 µg/mL (equivalent to PS concentration). PS was labeled by Cy3 (red); miR-31 inhibitor was labeled with FAM (green). Scale bar, 10 µm.