ProtocolsInfluence of dynamic flow environment on nanoparticle-protein corona: From protein patterns to uptake in cancer cells

- In physiological environments nanoparticles are covered by a protein corona.
- PEGylation cannot fully prevent protein adsorption onto nanoparticles.
- Exposure to dynamic flow affects the corona of nanoparticles.
- Exposure to dynamic flow affects cellular uptake of nanoparticles in cancer cells.
- The corona of nanoparticles in vivo cannot be predicted by in vitro incubation.

The fast growing use of nanoparticles (NPs) in biotechnology and biomedicine raises concerns about human health and the environment. When introduced in physiological milieus, NPs adsorb biomolecules (especially proteins) forming the so-called protein corona (PC). As it is the PC that mostly interacts with biological systems, it represents a major element of the NPs' biological identity with impact on nanotoxicology, nanosafety and targeted delivery of nanomedicines. To date, NP-protein interactions have been largely investigated in vitro, but this condition is far from mimicking the dynamic nature of physiological environments. Here we investigate the effect of shear stress on PC by exposing lipid NPs with different surface chemistry (either unmodified and PEGylated) to circulating fetal bovine serum (FBS). PC formed upon in vitro incubation was used as a reference. We demonstrate that PC is significantly influenced by exposure to dynamic flow and that changes in PC composition are dependent on both exposure time and NP's surface chemistry.Notably, alterations induced by dynamic flow affected cellular uptake of lipid NPs in both human cervical cancer (HeLa) and human breast adenocarcinoma (MCF7) cell lines.

Exposure to dynamic flow affects the corona composition and cellular uptake of nanoparticles in cancer cells.160