Modeling Nanoparticle Internalization via Receptor-Mediated Endocytosis

Abstract

In recent years there has been an enormous interest in using receptor-mediated endocytosis (RME) for cellular delivery of nanoparticles (NPs). In this approach, NPs containing a certain load (drug molecules, RNA, etc.) are coated with appropriate ligands that allows them to get internalized via RME. The internalized NPs then can be used for various biomedical applications including imaging, biosensing and targeted drug delivery.Current theoretical models proposed to explain NP internalization via RME are based on the hypothesis that the wrapping of a NP is driven by the formation of bonds between receptors (on cell surface) and ligands (on NP). We explore an alternative hypothesis: We propose that the wrapping of a NP is driven by the assembly of a protein coat that forms on the cytoplasmic side of the cell membrane during RME. Using a simple model of coat assembly that we proposed earlier (Banerjee et al., Biophys. J. 102, 2725 (2012)) we study the kinetics of NP internalization. In particular, we calculate how the wrapping probability and the mean wrapping time depend on the size of a NP. We compare our results with experimental data and those of other theoretical models.