Engineered colloidal nanomaterials, such as gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), have been deployed broadly as sensing, imaging, and drug-delivering agents. To obtain a mechanistic understanding of interactions AuNPs and biological interfaces and develop design rules for making sustainable AuNPs, we are pursuing a combination of experiments and simulations to uncover the chemical and physical properties of both the nanoparticle and model membranes. With the use of supported lipid bilayers (SLBs), consisting of a single phospholipid bilayer that is built on top of an underlying solid surface, potential nanoparticle interactions with cell membranes can be understood. Here, we examined the influence of substrate composition – silica dioxide (SiO<sub>2</sub>) vs Gold (Au) - on the interactions between anionic ligand-coated AuNPs and 1,2-Dioleoyl-snglycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) supported lipid bilayers using molecular dynamics simulations. We found that 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid (MUA)-anionic nanoparticles have stronger non-bonding interactions to the lipid bilayers formed on Au relative to those on SiO<sub>2</sub> substrates, which confirms the results from experiment. Moreover, we found that the major non-bonding interactions between AuNP and DOPC is the Coulombic interaction as the Van der Waals interaction is negligible.

Interactions between gold nanoparticles with bilayers supported by gold or silica

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