Short-Chain Alkanethiol Coating for Small-Size Gold Nanoparticles Supporting Protein Stability

Autor: Cristina Cantarutti, Sofia Giorgetti, Alessandra Corazza, Federico Fogolari, Palma Mangione, Vittorio Bellotti, Paolo Bertoncin, Gennaro Esposito
Přispěvatelé: Cantarutti, Cristina, Bertoncin, Paolo, Corazza, Alessandra, Giorgetti, Sofia, Mangione, P., Bellotti, Vittorio, Fogolari, Federico, Esposito, Gennaro
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Magnetochemistry, Vol 3, Iss 4, p 40 (2017)
Magnetochemistry; Volume 3; Issue 4; Pages: 40
ISSN: 2312-7481
Popis: The application of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) is emerging in many fields, raising the need for a systematic investigation on their safety. In particular, for biomedical purposes, a relevant issue are certainly AuNP interactions with biomolecules, among which proteins are the most abundant ones. Elucidating the effects of those interactions on protein structure and on nanoparticle stability is a major task towards understanding their mechanisms at a molecular level. We investigated the interaction of the 3-mercaptopropionic acid coating of AuNPs (MPA-AuNPs) with β2-microglobulin (β2m), which is a paradigmatic amyloidogenic protein. To this aim, we prepared and characterized MPA-AuNPs with an average diameter of 3.6 nm and we employed NMR spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy to probe protein structure perturbations. We found that β2m interacts with MPA-AuNPs through a highly localized patch maintaining its overall native structure with minor conformational changes. The interaction causes the reversible precipitation of clusters that can be easily re-dispersed through brief sonication. View Full-Text
Databáze: OpenAIRE