posted on 2020-05-04, 22:04authored byElena
A. Egorova, Mark M. J. van Rijt, Nico Sommerdijk, Gert S. Gooris, Joke A. Bouwstra, Aimee L. Boyle, Alexander Kros
The
functionalization of gold nanoparticles (GNPs) with peptidic
moieties can prevent their aggregation and facilitate their use for
applications both in vitro and in vivo. To date, no peptide-based coating has been shown to stabilize GNPs
larger than 30 nm in diameter; such particles are of interest for
applications including vaccine development, drug delivery, and sensing.
Here, GNPs with diameters of 20, 40, and 100 nm are functionalized
with peptide amphiphiles. Using a combination of transmission electron
microscopy, UV–vis spectroscopy, and dynamic light scattering,
we show that GNPs up to 100 nm in size can be stabilized by these
molecules. Moreover, we demonstrate that these peptide amphiphiles
form curvature-dependent, ordered structures on the surface of the
GNPs and that the GNPs remain disperse at high-salt concentrations
and in the presence of competing thiol-containing molecules. These
results represent the development of a peptide amphiphile-based coating
system for GNPs which has the potential to be beneficial for a wide
range of biological applications, in addition to image enhancement
and catalysis.