Accurate regulation of cellular zinc signaling is imperative to decipher underlyingzinc functions and develop new therapeutic agents. However, the ability tomodulate zinc in a spatiotemporal manner remains elusive. We...Accurate regulation of cellular zinc signaling is imperative to decipher underlyingzinc functions and develop new therapeutic agents. However, the ability tomodulate zinc in a spatiotemporal manner remains elusive. We herein report anintelligent spiropyran-upconversion （SP-UCNPs） based nanosystem that enablesnear-infrared （NIR） light-controlled zinc release at precise times and locations.The magnitude of zinc release can be simply manipulated by varying the durationof NIR irradiation. Moreover, the utilization of NIR light not only showed littledamage to cells but also significantly improved penetration depth. By evaluatingactivity of a model protein, phosphatase 2A, we further validated zinc signalingactivation. Importantly, our strategy may be broadly applicable to other types ofmetal ions, like the ubiquitous second messenger calcium. More importantly, ourstrategy can potentially enable the precise control of specific signaling pathways ofmetal ions while minimizing cellular damage, facilitating the advanced manipulationof cellular dynamics.展开更多
文摘Accurate regulation of cellular zinc signaling is imperative to decipher underlyingzinc functions and develop new therapeutic agents. However, the ability tomodulate zinc in a spatiotemporal manner remains elusive. We herein report anintelligent spiropyran-upconversion （SP-UCNPs） based nanosystem that enablesnear-infrared （NIR） light-controlled zinc release at precise times and locations.The magnitude of zinc release can be simply manipulated by varying the durationof NIR irradiation. Moreover, the utilization of NIR light not only showed littledamage to cells but also significantly improved penetration depth. By evaluatingactivity of a model protein, phosphatase 2A, we further validated zinc signalingactivation. Importantly, our strategy may be broadly applicable to other types ofmetal ions, like the ubiquitous second messenger calcium. More importantly, ourstrategy can potentially enable the precise control of specific signaling pathways ofmetal ions while minimizing cellular damage, facilitating the advanced manipulationof cellular dynamics.
