Nanoparticle size matters in the formation of plasma protein coronas on Fe3O4 nanoparticles.

When nanoparticles (NPs) enter into biological systems, proteins would interact with NPs to form the protein corona that can critically impact the biological identity of the nanomaterial. Owing to their fundamental scientific interest and potential applications, Fe3O4 NPs of different sizes have been developed for applications in cell separation and protein separation and as contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), etc. Here, we investigated whether nanoparticle size affects the formation of protein coronas around Fe3O4 NPs. Both the identification and quantification results demonstrated that particle size does play an important role in the formation of plasma protein coronas on Fe3O4 NPs; it not only influenced the protein composition of the formed plasma protein corona but also affected the abundances of the plasma proteins within the coronas. Understanding the different binding profiles of human plasma proteins on Fe3O4 NPs of different sizes would facilitate the exploration of the bio-distributions and biological fates of Fe3O4 NPs in biological systems.