Self-assembly of hen egg white lysozyme fibrils doped with magnetic particles

In this work, the interaction between spherical magnetic nanoparticles and amyloid fibrils as well as formation of self-assembled structures during drying process of such colloidal system were investigated. The final self assembled structures were observed experimentally by atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and polarizing microscopy. Our results show that the colloidal composites are self-assembled into flower-like patterns after the evaporation of liquid drop. These observations show that a large scale and well-organized multi-branched aggregates are formed during the process of drying. Moreover, observation by polarizing microscopy under crossed polarizers showed birefringence.