Carbon nanotube – Protamine hybrid: Evaluation of DNA cell penetration

International audience; Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) represent a class of nanomaterials with important potential for biomedical and biotechnological applications. CNT based vectorization is an emerging approach to the transport of nucleic acid through cell membrane but limited by detachment of DNA and degradation process. To increase DNA internalization, it was proved that cationic functionalized CNT was essential. In such a way, protamine efficiently used in several transfection processes is a cationic protein which was never associated to CNT.We propose here a novel nanovector based on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) functionalized by protamine. Our results based on qPCR methods clearly…