6533b85afe1ef96bd12b94a3

RESEARCH PRODUCT

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subject

chemistry.chemical_classificationendocrine systemGeneral Chemical EngineeringBiomoleculeNanoparticleProtein Corona02 engineering and technology010402 general chemistry021001 nanoscience & nanotechnologyElectrostatics01 natural sciencesYeast0104 chemical sciencesSilica nanoparticlesAdsorptionchemistryChemical engineeringGeneral Materials ScienceComposition (visual arts)0210 nano-technology

description

Biomolecules, and particularly proteins, bind on nanoparticle (NP) surfaces to form the so-called protein corona. It is accepted that the corona drives the biological distribution and toxicity of NPs. Here, the corona composition and structure were studied using silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) of different sizes interacting with soluble yeast protein extracts. Adsorption isotherms showed that the amount of adsorbed proteins varied greatly upon NP size with large NPs having more adsorbed proteins per surface unit. The protein corona composition was studied using a large-scale label-free proteomic approach, combined with statistical and regression analyses. Most of the proteins adsorbed on the NPs were the same, regardless of the size of the NPs. To go beyond, the protein physicochemical parameters relevant for the adsorption were studied: electrostatic interactions and disordered regions are the main driving forces for the adsorption on SiNPs but polypeptide sequence length seems to be an important factor as well. This article demonstrates that curvature effects exhibited using model proteins are not determining factors for the corona composition on SiNPs, when dealing with complex biological media.