Bio-NCs – the marriage of ultrasmall metal nanoclusters with biomolecules

Abstract

Ultrasmall metal nanoclusters (NCs) have attracted increasing attention due to their fascinating physicochemical properties. Today, functional metal NCs are finding growing acceptance in biomedical applications. To achieve a better performance in biomedical applications, metal NCs can be interfaced with biomolecules, such as proteins, peptides, and DNA, to form a new class of biomolecule-NC composites (or bio-NCs in short), which typically show synergistic or novel physicochemical and physiological properties. This feature article focuses on the recent studies emerging at the interface of metal NCs and biomolecules, where the interactions could impart unique physicochemical properties to the metal NCs, as well as mutually regulate biological functions of the bio-NCs. In this article, we first provide a broad overview of key concepts and developments in the novel biomolecule-directed synthesis of metal NCs. A special focus is placed on the key roles of biomolecules in metal NC synthesis. In the second part, we describe how the encapsulated metal NCs affect the structure and function of biomolecules. Followed by that, we discuss several unique synergistic effects observed in the bio-NCs, and illustrate them with examples highlighting their potential biomedical applications. Continued interdisciplinary efforts are required to build up in-depth knowledge about the interfacial chemistry and biology of bio-NCs, which could further pave their ways toward biomedical applications.

Enhancing stability through ligand-shell engineering: A case study with Au25(SR)18 nanoclusters

“…Because of strong quantum confinement effects in the sub-2-nm size range, thiolated Au NCs exhibit some interesting molecular-like properties such as quantized charging [8], HOMO-LUMO transitions [9], and strong luminescence [10][11][12], which make them promising in the fields of optoelectronics [13,14], catalysis [15][16][17], energy conversion [18,19], sensing [20,21], biomedicine [22][23][24][25], and others [26,27]. Most of these applications require NCs to be stable in aqueous solutions and/or in biological media.…”

Photoluminescent Gold Nanoclusters in Cancer Cells: Cellular Uptake, Toxicity, and Generation of Reactive Oxygen Species

“…However, growing demand for facile and eco-friendly synthesis brought up other kinds of weak reducing agents, such as Good’s buffers [16]. Increasing interest in “green” synthesis further led to development of photoluminescent gold nanoclusters synthesized using biomolecules such as proteins, peptides, and DNA to combine unique optical properties of Au NCs and biological functions of the biomolecules [17]. One example is a new class of photoluminescent gold nanoclusters synthesized within the protein templates, the first synthesis report being on the bovine serum albumin (BSA)-stabilized photoluminescent gold nanoclusters proposed by Xie et al [18].…”

Peptide-Au Clusters Induced Tumor Cells Apoptosis via Targeting Glutathione Peroxidase-1: The Molecular Dynamics Assisted Experimental Studies

“…Peptide-protected metal clusters possess a great deal of exceptional advantages such as accurate chemical formula, nanometer dimension, high photostability, good biocompatibility and scalable production 14, 15 . Nevertheless, it is a great challenge to achieve peptides with rational composition, sequence and length for precise synthesis of metal clusters with desirable structure, size, charge and targeting ability.…”