FOLLOWING PROTEIN CORONA FORMATION ONTO NANOPARTICLES BY MEANS OF SAXS AND COMPLEMENTARY TECHNIQUES

CAPELETTI, LARISSA B.; PICCO, AGUSTIN S.; BETTINI, JEFFERSON; GALDINO, FLÁVIA E.; CARDOSO, MATEUS B.

Campinas

Encuentro; 30th edition of the Annual Users Meeting of the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory- RAU/LNLS; 2020

Nanoparticles immersed in biological fluids experience protein adsorption. Thisphenomenon alters the surface properties of nanoparticle and ultimately modifies theirinteraction with biological systems [1]. Several techniques are used to characterizedifferent aspect of the protein corona like binding parameters (e.g. UV-Vis spectroscopy,Fluorescence, ITC), structural features (e.g. TEM, DLS, circular dichroism) andcomposition (e.g. SDS-PAGE, LC-MS), among others [2,3]. In this work we show howSAXS can be used to follow the formation of protein corona onto silica nanoparticles insitu. The proposed methodology is model independent and provides a robust way todetermine binding parameters. In addition, we compare the methodology with the moretraditional DLS characterization of protein corona formation and show pro and cons ofeach technique. Finally, we complement our results with cryo-TEM experiments forvisualizing the protein corona and further confirm SAXS and DLS conclusions.