2.B.114. The Synthetic Carbon-NanoHorn (SC-NH) Family
Single-walled carbon nanohorn (SWNH or SWCNH) is the name given by Sumio Iijima and colleagues in 1999 to horn-shaped sheath aggregate of graphene sheets (see Wikepedia). Very similar structures had been observed in 1994 by Peter J.F. Harris, Edman Tsang, John Claridge and Malcolm Green. Ever since the discovery of the fullerene,[4] the family of carbon nanostructures has been steadily expanded. Included in this family are single-walled and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs and MWNTs), carbon onions and cones and, most recently, SWNHs. These SWNHs with about 40–50 nm in tubule length and about 2–3 nm in diameter are derived from SWNTs and ended by a five-pentagon conical cap with a cone opening angle of ~20o. Moreover, thousands of SWNHs associate with each other to form the ‘dahlia-like' and ‘bud-like’ structured aggregates which have an average diameter of about 80–100 nm. The former consists of tubules and graphene sheets protruding from its surface like petals of a dahlia, while the latter is composed of tubules developing inside the particle itself. Their unique structures with high surface area and microporosity make SWNHs become a promising material for gas adsorption, biosensing, drug delivery, gas storage and catalyst support for fuel cell. Single-walled carbon nanohorns are an example of the family of carbon nanocones.
Cisplatin encapsulation into carbon nanohorns (CNH) is a promising nanoformulation to circumvent the drug dissipation and to specifically accumulate it in tumor sites (Almeida et al. 2023). Biased molecular dynamics simulations were used to analyze the transmembrane transport of the CNH loaded with cisplatin through a breast cancer cell membrane prototype. The simulations revealed a four-stage mechanism: approach, insertion, permeation, and internalization. Despite the lowest structural disturbance of the membrane provided by the nanocarrier, the average free energy barrier for translocation was 55.2 kcal/mol, suggesting that the passive process is kinetically unfavorable. In contrast, the free energy profiles revealed potential wells of -6.8 kcal /mol along the insertion stage in the polar heads region of the membrane, which might enhance the retention of the drug in tumor sites. Therefore, the most likely cisplatin delivery mechanism may involve the adsorption and retention of CNH on the surface of cancer cells, allowing the loaded cisplatin be slowly released and passively transported through the cell membrane (Almeida et al. 2023).