Department of Chemistry, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon 97330.
Biointerphases. 2022 Nov 8;17(6):061003. doi: 10.1116/6.0002183.
Customizable gold nanoparticle platforms are motivating innovations in drug discovery with massive therapeutic potential due to their biocompatibility, stability, and imaging capabilities. Further development requires the understanding of how discrete differences in shape, charge, or surface chemistry affect the drug delivery process of the nanoparticle. The nanoparticle shape can have a significant impact on nanoparticle function as this can, for example, drastically change the surface area available for modifications, such as surface ligand density. In order to investigate the effects of nanoparticle shape on the structure of cell membranes, we directly probed nanoparticle-lipid interactions with an interface sensitive technique termed sum frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy. Both gold nanostars and gold nanospheres with positively charged ligands were allowed to interact with a model cell membrane and changes in the membrane structure were directly observed by specific SFG vibrational modes related to molecular bonds within the lipids. The SFG results demonstrate that the +Au nanostars both penetrated and impacted the ordering of the lipids that made up the membrane, while very little structural changes to the model membrane were observed by SFG for the +Au nanospheres interacting with the model membrane. This suggests that the +Au nanostars, compared to the +Au nanospheres, are more disruptive to a cell membrane. Our findings indicate the importance of shape in nanomaterial design and provide strong evidence that shape does play a role in defining nanomaterial-biological interactions.
定制化的金纳米颗粒平台具有生物相容性、稳定性和成像能力，因此具有巨大的治疗潜力，正在推动药物发现领域的创新。进一步的发展需要了解形状、电荷或表面化学的离散差异如何影响纳米颗粒的药物传递过程。纳米颗粒的形状可以对纳米颗粒的功能产生重大影响，例如，这可以极大地改变可用于修饰的表面积，例如表面配体密度。为了研究纳米颗粒形状对细胞膜结构的影响，我们使用一种称为和频产生（SFG）振动光谱的界面敏感技术直接探测纳米颗粒-脂质相互作用。允许带正电荷配体的金纳米星和金纳米球与模型细胞膜相互作用，并通过与脂质内分子键相关的特定 SFG 振动模式直接观察到膜结构的变化。SFG 结果表明，+Au 纳米星既穿透又影响了构成膜的脂质的有序性，而与模型膜相互作用的 +Au 纳米球对模型膜的结构变化很小。这表明与 +Au 纳米球相比，+Au 纳米星对细胞膜的破坏性更大。我们的研究结果表明形状在纳米材料设计中的重要性，并提供了有力的证据，表明形状确实在定义纳米材料-生物相互作用中发挥作用。
