Rapid formation of plasma protein corona critically affects nanoparticle pathophysiology

Abstract

In biological fluids, proteins bind to the surface of nanoparticles to form a coating known as the protein corona, which can critically affect the interaction of the nanoparticles with living systems. As physiological systems are highly dynamic, it is important to obtain a time-resolved knowledge of protein-corona formation, development and biological relevancy. Here we show that label-free snapshot proteomics can be used to obtain quantitative time-resolved profiles of human plasma coronas formed on silica and polystyrene nanoparticles of various size and surface functionalization. Complex time- and nanoparticle-specific coronas, which comprise almost 300 different proteins, were found to form rapidly (<0.5 minutes) and, over time, to change significantly in terms of the amount of bound protein, but not in composition. Rapid corona formation is found to affect haemolysis, thrombocyte activation, nanoparticle uptake and endothelial cell death at an early exposure time.

Preliminary protein corona formation stabilizes gold nanoparticles and improves deposition efficiency

“…Physiological variables have been shown to modify NP properties and behavior, providing an explanation for these discrepancies (Tenzer et al 2013). For example, when NPs are introduced to a biological system, surrounding proteins instantaneously adsorb onto their surface, generating a protein corona: which serves as the biological identify of the NPs (Gunawan et al 2014).…”

Bridging the Knowledge of Different Worlds to Understand the Big Picture of Cancer Nanomedicines

“…Furthermore, often characterization of the properties of nanomedicines has been performed without considering the encountering of complex physiological environments, where nanomedicines can interact with blood, biological fluids and cause aggregarion/agglomeration, and protein corona formation that can alter their properties. [237,238] As a consequence of the alterations in the physicochemical properties, the in vivo biological effects like biological functions and therapeutic performance of the nanomedicines can be largely affected. Thus, it is important to develop more effecient quantitative analytical methods and standardized characterization methods that are reflecting clinically relevent conditions.…”

Facile synthesis of β-lactoglobulin capped Ag2S quantum dots for in vivo imaging in the second near-infrared biological window

“…Notably, the emission spectra of NIR-II emitting Ag2S QDs do not show clear sizedependent shift as reported in previous paper 45 . Moreover, the QY was calculated to be 5.68 % using the IR-26 dye as the reference standard (QY = 0.11%) 7,46 . Fig.…”