Because the mechanically interlocked structures are maintained by bulky stoppers at the ends of the strings, if the bulky stoppers are removed, such as removed by a chemical stimulus, rings dethread from the axes. The drastic structural change can be used for programmed drug or gene delivery, of which drug or gene can be released with the rings when the stoppers are cut off at the specific destination.
For example, an enhanced gene delivery vehicle can be obtained by using a polyrotaxane formed by rings, backbones, then stoppers that linked by a disulfide bond (or other chemical bond that can be selected cleave in the body). The cation-functionalized polyrotaxanes can bind with pDNA to form complex through the electronstatic interaction. Glutathione (or other corresponding chemicals that can cleave the sensitive chemical bond) is over-expressed in the target cells. When the polyrotaxane/plasmid DNA (pDNA) complexes are uptaken by the target cells, intercellular glutathione could cleave the disulfide bond to cut off the stoppers at the end of polyrotaxanes, which results in the dissociation of the polyrotaxanes. As the rings dethread from the chain, pDNA is released with the ring molecules.