Towards water-soluble [60]fullerenes for the delivery of siRNA in a prostate cancer model.

This paper presents two water-soluble fullerene nanomaterials (HexakisaminoC and monoglucosamineC, which is called here JK39) that were developed and synthesized as non-viral siRNA transfection nanosystems. The developed two-step Bingel-Hirsch reaction enables the chemical modification of the fullerene scaffold with the desired bioactive fragments such as D-glucosamine while keeping the crucial positive charged ethylenediamine based malonate. The ESI-MS and C-NMR analyses of JK39 confirmed its high T symmetry, while X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed the presence of nitrogen and oxygen-containing C-O or C-N bonds.