The protein corona that forms on the surface of colloidal nanoparticles plays an important role in their interaction with living matter. For this reason the characterization of the protein corona is of utmost importance for understanding how exposure to nanoparticles affects the biological responses of cells and organisms. Although a lot of experimental work has been reported in this direction, a comprehensive picture is still missing, in particular due to the high number of different scenarios under which experiments have been performed. It will be reviewed how existing simple analytical models such as the adopted Hill model may help to extract quantitative data from such experiments such as equilibrium dissociation and kinetic coefficients of 'in test tube' scenarios. However, once exposed to cells (in vitro), the protein corona of the nanoparticles can change, in particular upon incooperation of the nanoparticles by cells. Upon internalization, NPs typically reside in endocytic vesicles (e.g. endosomes, lysosomes), in which the conditions are completely different to those outside the cell; that is, NPs are exposed to a lower pH, different salts, and also different kinds of proteins and enzymes. It will be demonstrated how these enzymes can (at least partly) digest the original protein corona. Indications will be presented that the same is true also for in vivo scenarios.References:M. Chanana, P. Rivera Gil, M. A. Correa-Duarte, L. M. Liz-Marz�n. W. J. Parak, 'Physicochemical Properties of Protein-Coated Gold Nanoparticles in Biological Fluids and Cells before and after Proteolytic Digestion', Angewandte Chemie 52 , 4179�4183 (2013).P. del Pino, B. Pelaz, Q. Zhang, P. Maffre, G. U. Nienhaus, W. J. Parak, 'Protein corona formation around nanoparticles - from the past to the future', Materials Horizon, accepted.

Protein corona of nanoparticles

247th National Meeting (2014)

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