State Key Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, PR China.
Shandong Key Laboratory of Water Pollution Control and Resource Reuse, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Shandong University, China-America CRC for Environment & Health, Jinan 250100, PR China.
J Hazard Mater. 2015 Jul 15;292:98-107. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2015.03.023. Epub 2015 Mar 14.
In this work, we investigated and compared carbon nanotubes (CNTs) of different diameters regarding their interaction with bovine serum albumin (BSA) and their ability to alter protein structure. BSA was exposed to CNT solutions, and the effects were assessed by utilizing fluorescence spectroscopy, UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), bichinchoninic acid (BCA) and zeta-potential measurement assays. We demonstrate that CNT diameter and surface area play key roles in influencing the stability of adsorbed proteins. Results showed that the secondary and tertiary structural stability of BSA decreased upon adsorption onto CNTs, with greater decrease on smaller-diametered nanotubes. Besides, more protein was loaded onto CNTs with small diameter, reducing the cytotoxicity. This study, therefore, provides fundamental information for the influence of CNT diameter and surface on protein behavior, which may be helpful to understand toxic effects of CNTs and prove beneficial for developing novel biomedical devices and safe use of nanomaterials.
在这项工作中，我们研究并比较了不同直径的碳纳米管（CNT）与牛血清白蛋白（BSA）的相互作用及其改变蛋白质结构的能力。将 BSA 暴露于 CNT 溶液中，并通过荧光光谱法、紫外-可见吸收光谱法、圆二色性（CD）光谱法、透射电子显微镜（TEM）、双缩脲（BCA）和zeta 电位测量法评估其效果。我们证明了 CNT 直径和表面积在影响吸附蛋白稳定性方面起着关键作用。结果表明，BSA 的二级和三级结构稳定性在吸附到 CNT 上时降低，在较小直径的纳米管上降低更大。此外，更多的蛋白质被加载到具有小直径的 CNT 上，从而降低了细胞毒性。因此，本研究为 CNT 直径和表面对蛋白质行为的影响提供了基础信息，这可能有助于理解 CNT 的毒性作用，并为开发新型生物医学设备和安全使用纳米材料提供有益的依据。
