Intracellular Drug Delivery: Smart Nanovehicles Based on pH‐Triggered Disassembly of Supramolecular Peptide‐Amphiphiles for Efficient Intracellular Drug Delivery (Small 6/2014)

A supramolecular peptide-amphiphile system (SPAS) based on peptide dendrimers and linear peptides is reported on page 1133 by Z. Gu and co-workers. As shown in the Taiji Diagram, the SPAS have a well-defined nanostructure at pH 7.4, but the whole SPAS system disassembles at pH 6.2. This pH-dependent process is attributed to the polyelectrolyte property of peptides causing the formation and disappearance of weak interactions in non-covalent dendritic peptide-amphiphiles. This SPAS is explored as a smart drug nanovehicle to encapsulate anticancer drugs at normal physiological conditions, and it can disassemble to release the drugs at the pH levels found inside tumor cells.