Chemical Cell Surface Modification and Analysis of Nanoparticle-Modified Living Cells

Cells are promising as carriers that can enhance the delivery of nanomedicines. Cells that carry nanomedicinal cargo, either immobilized on the cell surface or internalized, can allow for highly specific delivery and can enable the transport of nanomedicines across challenging physiological barriers. The effective use of cells as carriers for the transport and delivery of nanomedines requires a careful selection of the chemical strategies that are used to load the cell-based carriers with their cargo. To this end, an in-depth understanding of the impact of various cell-surface modification chemistries on the viability and functional properties of the cells is essential, and techniques are needed that allow characterization of nanoparticle-modified living cells. This article touches upon both of these aspects. The first part of this review will present an overview of contemporary strategies that are available for the cell surface immobilization of nanoparticle cargo. After that, the various techniques that are most frequently used for the characterization of nanoparticle-modified cells will be discussed.