Dynamic protein coronas revealed as a modulator of silver nanoparticle sulphidation in vitro

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 7; no. 1; pp. 11770 - 10
• Main Authors: Miclăuş, Teodora, Beer, Christiane, Chevallier, Jacques, Scavenius, Carsten, Bochenkov, Vladimir E., Enghild, Jan J., Sutherland, Duncan S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 09.06.2016; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 13/2; 13/21; 639/301/54/1754; 639/638/263; 639/925/350/354; 82/29; 82/58; Adsorption; Cell culture; Cell Culture Techniques; Humanities and Social Sciences; Ions; Metal Nanoparticles - chemistry; multidisciplinary; Nanoparticles; Oxidation; Particle Size; Protein Corona - chemistry; Proteins; Proteins - chemistry; Proteins - metabolism; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Silver; Silver - chemistry; Silver Compounds - chemistry; Toxicity; X-rays; Denmark; Aarhus Denmark
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11770

Proteins adsorbing at nanoparticles have been proposed as critical toxicity mediators and are included in ongoing efforts to develop predictive tools for safety assessment. Strongly attached proteins can be isolated, identified and correlated to changes in nanoparticle state, cellular association or toxicity. Weakly attached, rapidly exchanging proteins are also present at nanoparticles, but are difficult to isolate and have hardly been examined. Here we study rapidly exchanging proteins and show for the first time that they have a strong modulatory effect on the biotransformation of silver nanoparticles. Released silver ions, known for their role in particle toxicity, are found to be trapped as silver sulphide nanocrystals within the protein corona at silver nanoparticles in serum-containing cell culture media. The strongly attached corona acts as a site for sulphidation, while the weakly attached proteins reduce nanocrystal formation in a serum-concentration-dependent manner. Sulphidation results in decreased toxicity of Ag NPs. The biomolecule layer adsorbed at the nanoparticle surface and defined as protein corona affects the nanoparticle biophysical properties and functions. Here, the authors suggest that rapidly-exchanging proteins on the outermost layer of the corona modulate sulphidation of silver nanoparticles in vitro .