Mapping and identification of soft corona proteins at nanoparticles and their impact on cellular association

作者：H. Mohammad-Beigi, Y. Hayashi, Christina M. Zeuthen, Hoda Eskandari, C. Scavenius, Kristian Juul-Madsen, T. Vorup-Jensen, J. Enghild, D. Sutherland · 发表于：Nature Communications · 年份：2020 · DOI：10.1038/s41467-020-18237-7 · 被引用次数：173 · 研究领域：Chemistry、Medicine、Biology

The current understanding of the biological identity that nanoparticles may acquire in a given biological milieu is mostly inferred from the hard component of the protein corona (HC). The composition of soft corona (SC) proteins and their biological relevance have remained elusive due to the lack of analytical separation methods. Here, we identify a set of specific corona proteins with weak interactions at silica and polystyrene nanoparticles by using an in situ click-chemistry reaction. We show that these SC proteins are present also in the HC, but are specifically enriched after the capture, suggesting that the main distinction between HC and SC is the differential binding strength of the same proteins. Interestingly, the weakly interacting proteins are revealed as modulators of nanoparticle-cell association mainly through their dynamic nature. We therefore highlight that weak interactions of proteins at nanoparticles should be considered when evaluating nano-bio interfaces. Understanding the biological identity of nanoparticles has mainly focused on the hard protein corona with the soft corona largely overlooked. Here, using click-chemistry, the authors report on a capture system for the identification of the soft corona proteins and investigate the effects on cell interactions.