ArticleNature communications2026
In vivo metabolic tagging and targeting of circulating red blood cells.
Article in Nature communications, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Living Inorganic Nanomaterials: Design, Preparation, and Biomedical Applications.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Review
- Metabolic Glycoengineering Enables Fluorine-18 Radiolabeling of T Lymphocytes via Dual-Bioorthogonal Chemistry.Bioconjugate chemistry · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
15 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Engineering red blood cells (RBCs) has been widely explored for drug delivery, imaging, vaccination, and other applications. However, effective strategies to directly engineer RBCs in vivo are still lacking. Here, we report successful metabolic glycan labeling of RBCs in vivo. We demonstrate that systemically administered azido-sugars can metabolically label circulating RBCs with azido groups, through labeling of both mature RBCs and RBC precursor cells. The surface azido tags on RBCs can persist for over 42 days in female mice (nearly the lifespan of RBCs), while tags on leukocytes decay to negligible levels within 3 days. Azido-labeled RBCs can covalently capture dibenzocyclooctyne-bearing cargos in vivo via click chemistry, extending cargo circulation from hours to over 35 days. This RBC tagging and targeting technology can improve fluorescence imaging of blood vessels, enable long-term MRI of brain vasculatures with a single gadolinium dose, and improve the pharmacokinetics of drugs.
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