Effect of protein corona magnetite nanoparticles derived from bread in vitro digestion on Caco-2 cells morphology and uptake

Abstract

Nanoparticles (NPs) in biological fluids immediately interact with proteins forming a biomolecular corona (PC) that imparts their biological identity. While several studies on the formation of the PC in human plasma have been reported, the PC of orally administrated NPs has been less investigated, mostly in the presence of a food matrix. In fact, food matrixes when digested are subject of several dynamic changes that will certainly affect the PC formed on the NPs. The lack of studies on this topic is clearly related to the difficulty in isolating representative PC NPs from such a complex environment. In this work magnetite NPs were added to in vitro simulated digestion simultaneously with bread and PC NPs were isolated after gastric and duodenal phases by sucrose gradient ultracentrifugation (UC). The PC NPs were characterized in terms of size and protein composition. Translocation studies were then performed on Caco-2 monolayers in a serum free environment and cell morphology was characterized by confocal microscopy. PC NPs isolated from gastric and duodenal phases were different in size, surface charge and protein corona composition. NP cellular uptake was enhanced by the digestive PC inducing morphology changes in the cell monolayer. Overall, in this work we were able to isolate PC NPs from digested fluids in the presence of a food matrix and study their biological response on Caco-2 cells.

Is nano safe in foods? Establishing the factors impacting the gastrointestinal fate and toxicity of organic and inorganic food-grade nanoparticles

“…The importance of this effect is highlighted by a recent study, which reported that the interfacial properties of inorganic (magnetite) nanoparticles co-ingested with bread were altered in a way that promoted their uptake by intestinal epithelium cells. 123 Another in vitro study showed that the presence of a digested food matrix enhanced the absorption of silver nanoparticles by intestinal epithelium cells. 124 These findings demonstrated that the characteristics of the nanoparticles inside the GIT may be appreciably different to those of the original (pristine) nanoparticles, which is often ignored in biological fate and toxicity assessments of food nanoparticles potentially leading to unrealistic and misleading results.…”

The effect of the protein corona on the interaction between nanoparticles and lipid bilayers

“…22 Since the PC affects the properties of the NP surface, it has significant impact on the interaction between membrane and NPs. [23][24][25][26][27] Many studies are described in the literature where NP cellular uptake is related to the presence of a PC on the NPs in biological fluids, [28][29][30] in particular it has been shown that a key factor in NPs cellular uptake is their adhesion to the cell membrane that significantly affects their final uptake rates. 31 NP-cell membrane interaction is a complex dynamic process in which the environmental proteins are known to play an important multifaceted role: not only they adsorb onto the NP surface forming the PC, but also they compete with the NP in the interaction with the cell membrane.…”

Combined effect of titanium dioxide nanoparticles and glucose on the cardiovascular system in young rats after oral administration

“…Previous studies have already demonstrated that TiO 2 NPs exhibited strong adsorption of biological and chemical molecules, such as metal ions (including Pb, As, Cu and Cd) and organic compounds (including BPA and p,p′‐DDT) in the solution (Du et al, ; Fan et al, ; Shi et al, ; Wang, Hu, Irons, & Wang, ; Yang, Miao, & Yang, ; Zheng et al, ). Indeed, digestion with the presence of food components,e.g., proteins and other biomolecules, which can rapidly bind to NPs, can affect the physico‐chemical properties of NPs and change the nano‐bio interaction by the formation of the protein/biomolecule corona, subsequently altering the biological responses of NPs following oral exposure (Di Silvio, Rigby, Bajka, Mackie, & Bombelli, ; Docter et al, ). Some studies have shown that changing physicochemical properties of NPs by surface coating affected the uptake of NPs into intestinal cells or translocation of NPs across intestinal barriers (Bohmert, Niemann, Lichtenstein, Juling, & Lampen, ; Song et al, ; Teubl et al, ; Walczak et al, ).…”