title: Towards chemical communication between gated nanoparticles.
abstract: The design of comparatively simple and modularly configurable artificial systems able to communicate through the exchange of chemical messengers is, to the best of our knowledge, an unexplored field. As a proof-of-concept, we present here a family of nanoparticles that have been designed to communicate with one another in a hierarchical manner. The concept involves the use of capped mesoporous silica supports in which the messenger delivered by a first type of gated nanoparticle is used to open a second type of nanoparticle, which delivers another messenger that opens a third group of gated nanoobjects. We believe that the conceptual idea that nanodevices can be designed to communicate with one another may result in novel applications and will boost further advances towards cooperative systems with complex behavior as a result of the communication between simple abiotic individual components.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Reconocimiento Molecular y Tecnológico (IDM), Unidad Mixta Universidad Politécnica de Valencia-Universidad de Valencia (Spain) http://idm.webs.upv.es/; Departamento de Química, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Camino de Vera s/n, 46022 Valencia (Spain); CIBER de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Giménez
authors.forename: Estela
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Climent
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Aznar
authors.forename: Ramón
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Martínez-Máñez
authors.forename: Félix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sancenón
authors.forename: M Dolores
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Marcos
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Amorós
authors.forename: Knut
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rurack
mesh_terms: D004396:Coloring Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D007202:Indicators and Reagents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods; D010619:Phenazines / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000032:analysis; D016062:Porosity; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D004396:Coloring Agents; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D010619:Phenazines; D012822:Silicon Dioxide; C009195:safranine T
keywords: chemical communication; gated nanoparticles; mesoporous materials; nanoparticles community