Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    Identification of Receptor Binding to the Biomolecular Corona of Nanoparticles
    Biomolecules adsorbed on nanoparticles are known to confer a biological identity to nanoparticles, mediating the interactions with cells and biological barriers. However, how these molecules are presented on the particle surface in biological milieu remains unclear. The central aim of this study is to identify key protein recognition motifs and link them to specific cell-receptor interactions. Here, we employed an immuno-mapping technique to quantify epitope presentations of two major proteins in the serum corona, low-density lipoprotein and immunoglobulin G. Combining with a purpose-built receptor expression system, we show that both proteins present functional motifs to allow simultaneous recognition by low-density lipoprotein receptor and Fc-gamma receptor I of the corona. Our results suggest that the “labeling” of nanoparticles by biomolecular adsorption processes allows for multiple pathways in biological processes in which they may be “mistaken” for endogenous objects, such as lipoproteins, and exogenous ones, such as viral infections.
    Scopus© Citations 182  542
  • Publication
    Differential Recognition of Nanoparticle Protein Corona and Modified Low-Density Lipoprotein by Macrophage Receptor with Collagenous Structure
    Key practical challenges such as understanding the immunological processes at the nanoscale and controlling the targeting and accumulation of nano-objects in vivo now further stimulate efforts to underpin phenomenological knowledge of the nanoscale with more mechanistic and molecular insight. Thus, the question as to what constitutes nanoscale biological identity continues to evolve. Certainly nanoparticles in contact with a complex biological milieu develop a biological identity, differing from the original nanomaterial, now referred to as the "biomolecular corona". However, this surface-adsorbed layer of biomolecules may in some circumstance lead to different forms of receptor-particle interactions not evident only from the identity of the surface-adsorbed biomolecules and hard to predict or detect by current physicochemical methods. Here we show that scavenger receptors may recognize complex as yet unidentified biomolecular surface layer motifs, even when no current physicochemical analysis is capable of doing so. For instance, fluorescently labeled SiO nanoparticles in a biological milieu are strongly recognized by the macrophage receptor with collagenous structure (MARCO) in even dense biological media (human serum) apparently using a form of binding with which most of the MARCO's known ligands (e.g., LPS, modified LDL) fail to compete. Such observations may suggest the need for a much stronger emphasis on nanoscale receptor-corona and other biomolecular interaction studies if one wishes to unravel how biomolecular recognition drives outcomes in the nanoscale biological domain. 2
    Scopus© Citations 61  117