Differential binding of serum proteins to nanoparticles

Abstract

In the physiological environment, endogenous proteins readily adsorb to the surface of foreign materials. These proteins facilitate recognition by phagocytic cells and strongly influence the nature of the immune and inflammatory responses. Properly anticipating the potential adverse effects caused by nanomaterials requires a fundamental understanding of the physical properties that govern this process. The large number of adherent proteins and the competitive nature of adsorption in multicomponent solutions have made quantifying protein adsorption to nanomaterials from native physiological fluids a challenging analytical prospect. In this paper, we report the use of an isotope coded affinity tag (ICAT) based dual-label method to identify the proteins that adsorb to aluminium, nickel and diamond nanoparticles following their exposure to human serum. With this method, we were able to identify 69 unique proteins that exhibited adsorption to the various nanoparticles and quantify the relative affinities with which these proteins bind.