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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Jun 8.
Published in final edited form as: Bioconjug Chem. 2018 Feb 19;29(4):1111–1118. doi: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.7b00774

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Au-NP system for selective SN-38 activation in cancer cells mediated by cancer cell specific mRNA. In this approach, each gold particle is conjugated to oligonucleotides (red) complementary (antisense) to an mRNA that is either overexpressed in or unique to cancer cells. A shorter, complementary SN38-conjugated oligonucleotide (SN38—orange; oligonucleotide—green) is annealed via base pairing to the antisense oligonucleotide to generate SN38-DNA Au-NPs. In a cancer cell, the SN38-conjugated oligonucleotide is released from sequestration to the Au-NP and can inhibit topoisomerase I by the binding of the targeted mRNA (blue). The amount of SN38-conjugated oligonucleotide released from the Au-NP is proportional to the amount of cancer cell specific mRNA present in the cell.