Gel Electrophoresis Analysis of the Hard Coronas of Human Serum Albumin on Silica Nanoparticles: Size Dependence of Corona Formation

Abstract

The rapid and spontaneous adsorption of proteins on nanoparticle (NP) surfaces in biological fluids such as blood is an important phenomenon as it possibly determines "what the cells see" and, thus, the fates of NPs in living organisms. In order to quantitatively understand protein coronas at the molecular level, we investigated human serum albumin (HSA) coronas that were produced on silica NPs of 20 nm and 50 nm diameters using conventional gel electrophoresis. Analysis of the concentration dependence of protein adsorption showed that HSA coronas preferentially formed a monolayer on silica NPs and revealed the presence of hard protein coronas. HSA adsorption was clearly dependent on NP size, and this might be due to the different surface curvatures of NPs of different sizes.