The Impact of Surface Functionalization on the Biophysical Properties of Silver Nanoparticles.

Agnieszka Borowik,Mykola Davydenko,Jacek Piosik,Paweł Pohl,Vsevolod Cherepanov,Yuriy Prylutskyy,Dariusz Wyrzykowski,Viktor Styopkin,Aleksandra Krolicka,Natalia Derewonko,Kamila Butowska,Kinga Konkel,Rafał Banasiuk

doi:10.3390/nano9070973

Abstract

Among metal-based nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are particularly appealing because of their stability, functionality, and documented antimicrobial properties. AgNPs also offer the possibility of different surface modifications. In this work, we functionalized AgNPs with thiobarbituric acid or 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid residues to improve the nanoparticles’ biological activities. Subsequently, we assessed the physicochemical properties of newly synthesized AgNPs using a wide range of biophysical methodologies, including UV/vis and fluorescence spectroscopy, atomic force and scanning electron microscopy, and dynamic light scattering and isothermal titration calorimetry. Next, we examined the effect of nanoparticles functionalization on AgNPs mutagenicity and toxicity. Our study revealed that AgNPs’ surface modification affects nanoparticles aggregation, and also impacts nanoparticles’ interaction with model acridine mutagen ICR-191. AgNPs coated with MUA showed the most interesting interactions with tested ICR-191, slightly modulating its toxicity properties by decreasing the viability in treated cells.

Highlights

Silver has been present in human beings’ daily lives and can be used, widely, in its different states: metallic, soluble, and insoluble
The Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM), bovine serum, L-glutamine, glucose, penicillin, and streptomycin used in the cell lines experiments were purchased from Sigma Aldrich Chemical Company (Steinheim, Germany)
The efficiency of the synthesis and surface functionalization was determined by the final amount of obtained nanoparticles: naked AgNPs, AgNP-Thiobarbituric acid (TBA), and AgNP-mercaptoundecanoic acid residues (MUA)

Summary

Introduction

Silver has been present in human beings’ daily lives and can be used, widely, in its different states: metallic, soluble, and insoluble. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), when suspended in a solvent, are referred to as colloidal silver [1,2,3,4,5,6] Despite their interesting properties, AgNPs nanoparticles play an important role as templates for further surface modifications. Because of particles’ surface oxidation, Ag+ ions are being continuously released. Any such processes may affect the silver’s toxicity towards the cell [4,5,7,8,9,10]. Silver ion release connected with AgNPs’ surface oxidation enhances the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cells. AgNPs might deactivate signaling pathways, induce G1 arrest, and block cells in the S-phase, which inhibits cell proliferation and leads to apoptosis activation [10,11,12]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion