Nanoparticle Spikes Enhance Cellular Uptake via Regulating Myosin IIA Recruitment

Spike-like nanostructures are omnipresent in natural and artificial systems. Although biorecognition of nanostructures to cellular receptors has been indicated as the primary factor for virus infection pathways, how the spiky morphology of DNA-modified nanoparticles affects their cellular uptake and intracellular fate remains to be explored. Here, we design dually emissive gold nanoparticles with varied spikiness (from 0 to 2) to probe the interactions of spiky nanoparticles with cells. We discovered that nanospikes at the nanoparticle regulated myosin IIA recruitment at the cell membrane during cellular uptake, thereby enhancing cellular uptake efficiency, as revealed by dual-modality (plasmonic and fluorescence) imaging. Furthermore, the spiky nanoparticles also exhibited facilitated endocytosis dynamics, as revealed by real-time dark-field microscopy (DFM) imaging and colorimetry-based classification algorithms. These findings highlight the crucial role of the spiky morphology in regulating the intracellular fate of nanoparticles, which may shed light on engineering theranostic nanocarriers.