Physicochemical and biological characterization of nanovenoms, a new tool formed by silica nanoparticles and Crotalus durissus terrificus venom

BAUDOU, FEDERICO G.; FUSCO, LUCIANO; GIORGI, EXEQUIEL; DIAZ, EUGENIA; MUNICOY, SOFÍA; DESIMONE, MARTÍN F.; LEIVA, LAURA; DE MARZI, MAURICIO C.

COLLOIDS AND SURFACES B-BIOINTERFACES

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2020 vol. 193

0927-7765

Nanoparticles (NPs) are being studied due to their potential use as therapeutic and immunomodulatory tools,including their ability to transport antigens with the aim to induce a specific immune response. The productionof snake antivenoms (AV) involves several inoculations of venom (V) in the presence of adjuvants (ADJ) toimprove the immune response of inoculated animals, causing a decrease in its quality and shelf life. Therefore, itis interesting to develop new strategies for reduce these side effects. For that reason, associating V to NPs toreplace conventional ADJ could be a useful tool for future AV production. In this work, nanovenoms (NVs) weregenerated by the adsorption of Crotalus durissus terrificus (Cdt) V proteins over silica NPs (SiNPs) synthesizedaccording to the Stöber method. Microphotographies obtained under Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)displayed a protein crown over NPs and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) presented the expected spectra forNVs resulting from the sum of those exhibited by Cdt V and SiNPs separately. SDS PAGE and immunoblottingassays confirmed the presence of proteins over SiNPs. Furthermore, the different enzymatic activities detecteddemonstrated that SiNPs were capable of binding V proteins preserving its activity and therefore would keep itsnative structure. In the same way, the NVs conserve the potential cytotoxic effects present in the V as weobserved when culturing THP-1 cells with these complexes. This evidence allows us to infer that developed NVscould be used as a new platform for the production of antisera or for immunomodulatory therapies.