Kuroi Kunisato, Kanazawa Yuta, Shinaridome Akane, Yasuda Yuna, Jung Minkyo, Pack Chan-Gi, Fujii Fumihiko
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kobe Gakuin University Kobe 650-8586 Japan
Neural Circuit Research Group, Korea Brain Research Institute Daegu 41062 Korea.
Nanoscale Adv. 2024 Nov 25;7(2):560-571. doi: 10.1039/d4na00696h. eCollection 2025 Jan 14.
Nanoparticles (NPs) have been widely studied and applied in medical and pharmaceutical fields. When NPs enter the environment, they are covered with protein molecules to form the so-called "protein corona". Because NPs and proteins are comparable in size, the shape of NPs has a significant impact on NP-protein interactions. Although NPs of various shapes have been synthesized, how the shape of NPs affects the protein corona is poorly understood, and little is known about the underlying molecular mechanism. In the present study, we synthesized spherical, football-shaped, and rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals (SNCs) as model NPs and compared their interaction with human serum albumin (HSA) using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, fluorescence quenching, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and thermodynamic analysis. Based on the binding enthalpy and entropy and secondary structural changes of HSA, with the help of hydrodynamic diameter changes of SNCs, we concluded that HSA adopts a conformation or orientation that is appropriate for the local curvature of SNCs. This study demonstrates the effect of NP shape on their interaction with proteins and provides a mechanistic perspective.
纳米颗粒（NPs）已在医学和制药领域得到广泛研究和应用。当纳米颗粒进入环境时，它们会被蛋白质分子覆盖，形成所谓的“蛋白质冠”。由于纳米颗粒和蛋白质在大小上具有可比性，纳米颗粒的形状对纳米颗粒与蛋白质的相互作用有重大影响。尽管已经合成了各种形状的纳米颗粒，但人们对纳米颗粒的形状如何影响蛋白质冠了解甚少，对其潜在的分子机制也知之甚少。在本研究中，我们合成了球形、足球形和棒状半导体纳米晶体（SNCs）作为模型纳米颗粒，并使用荧光相关光谱、荧光猝灭、傅里叶变换红外光谱和热力学分析比较了它们与人类血清白蛋白（HSA）的相互作用。基于HSA的结合焓、熵和二级结构变化，借助SNCs的流体动力学直径变化，我们得出结论，HSA采取了适合SNCs局部曲率的构象或取向。本研究证明了纳米颗粒形状对其与蛋白质相互作用的影响，并提供了一个机制视角。
