We created the dual-responsive
nanovehicle that can effectively
combine and abundantly utilize magnetic and glutathione (GSH)-reductive
triggers to control the drug delivery and achieve more intelligent
and powerful targeting. In the nanovehicles, paramagnetic fullerene
(C<sub>60</sub>@CTAF) was prepared via one-step modification of fullerene
with magnetic surfactant CTAF by hydrophobic interaction for the first
time. The perfect conjugation of C<sub>60</sub> and CTAF increased
the solubility or dispersity of fullerenes and qualified CTAF with
more powerful assembly capability with DNA. DNA molecule in the nanovehicles
acted as an electrostatic scaffold to load anticancer drug Dox as
well as the important building block for assembly with C<sub>60</sub>@CTAF into C<sub>60</sub>@CTAF/DNA. The further combination of deshielding
and targeting functions in reduction-responsive disulfide modified
HA-SS-COOH coating on C<sub>60</sub>@CTAF/DNA complexes could reduce
the agglomeration and regulate the morphology of C<sub>60</sub>@CTAF/DNA
complexes from irregular microstructures to more uniform ones. More
importantly, the introduction of HA-SS-COOH provided a response to
a simulating reductive extra-tumoral environment by efficient cleavage
of disulfide linkages by GSH and site-specific drug delivery to HepG2
cells. Amazingly, the final nanovehicles presented an increased magnetic
susceptibility compared with paramagnetic CTAF, and they “walked”
under an applied magnetic field. Because of their facile fabrication,
rapid responsiveness to extra tumoral environment, and external automatic
controllability by external magnet, the drug delivery nanovehicles
constructed by magnetic fullerene-DNA/hyaluronic acid might be of
great interest for making new functional nucleic-acid-based drug carriers
