Nanoparticles (NPs) are known to acquire a corona of biomolecules when they are submerged in a biological environment. While research has extensively focused on protein coronas, it has been proposed that lipids also have the tendency to form coronas, which has received less attention. Therefore, it is necessary to study the nanoparticle-membrane interface for potential lipid corona formation. A centrifugation-based assay has been proved applicable for nanoparticle-lipid vesicle interactions, however, there are few studies that identify and quantify the lipid in lipid vesicles association on NPs, i.e. lipid corona formation. Developing quantitative relationships can help predict the biological responses to NPs and eventually assist in uncovering the fundamental mechanisms of nano-bio interactions. Herein, we developed a centrifugation-based pull-down experiment by using several qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques, including UV-vis spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering (DLS), ζ-potential analysis and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). 15 nm in diameter 16-mercaptohexadecyl trimethylammonium bromide capped AuNPs (MTAB-AuNPs) and poly(allylamine) hydrochloride wrapped AuNPs (PAH-AuNPs) were interacted individually with suspended lipid vesicles of four combinations as follows: 100% 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC, zwitterionic), and DOPC containing 10% of 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-L-serine (DOPS, anionic), 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-(1'-rac-glycerol) (DOPG, anionic), or 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine(DOPE, zwitterionic). Qualitative and quantitative data indicated lipid corona formation on both types of AuNPs. While different types of AuNPs had different behaviours when interacting with lipid vesicles, different charges of lipid vesicles may influence the propensity of the formation of lipid corona.

Analysis of lipid binding to gold nanoparticle from lipid vesicles

256th National Meeting (2018)

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