(485f) Effect of Protein Corona On Nanoparticle Cellular Uptake

Understanding the interface of nanomaterials and the environment is becoming increasingly important with the advances in biomedical applications of the nanoparticles. In the biological environment nanoparticles get exposed to serum proteins resulting in the formation of protein corona. Using chemically faithful coarse grained molecular dynamics simulations, the adsorption of specific serum proteins on a variety of nanoparticles have been studied to provide chemical insight into the into the dynamical equilibrium process.  The role of physiochemical properties of nanoparticle such as size, shape, and surface charge on the corona formation has been investigated systematically. Furthermore, the dynamics of the nanoparticle-corona complex with the cell membrane is simulated to determine the mechanism of their cellular uptake. For comparison, we will provide estimates of the mechanistic and kinetic data for the cellular uptake of a various nanoparticle shapes both with and without protein corona. The impact of the corona on cell-adhesion and loss of cell specificity is evaluated.