Protein corona

[2] Protein coronas can form in many different patterns depending on their size, shape, composition, charge, and surface functional groups, and have properties that vary in different environmental factors like temperature, pH, shearing stress, immersed media composition, and exposing time.

[4] They found that the proteins adsorbed easily to the silica surface and expressed themselves in different patterns depending on the amount of plasma present in the incubated medium.

[4] From studies like these, it is clear that a protein corona can be altered significantly, depending on the weight and affinity of the biological molecules in a particular medium.

[5] After only 30 seconds of interaction, almost 300 proteins were detected adsorbing to the nanoparticle surface, and a majority of those molecules had low affinity (pharmacology) and a large molecular weight.

[5] Thus, the length of the exposure time of the nanoparticle to biological fluid can greatly alter the composition and patterns of the protein corona.

One study found that fluidic flow increased the biodiversity of the protein corona and altered its shape due to the shearing forces present in the environment.

[7] This finding was especially interesting in the effort to utilize protein coronas to treat illnesses, because in introducing these particles into the human body, they will have to exist and function at high temperatures.

[10] As a result, hydrophobic nanoparticles are more likely to induce particle aggregation and higher opsonization in the human body, which can decrease systemic circulation time in the blood.

The corona that forms when nanoparticles come in contact with biological fluid has long been investigated for its potential to deliver important drug molecules or proteins to sites of need within the human body.

[3] Nanoparticles are known to have high drug-loading efficiency as well as the ability to easily pass through biological barriers due to their nano scalability.

[12][13] Their composition tunability allows for their toxicity to be controlled, and they can be modified to contain diverse sets of functional groups that can perform specific activities.

[19] Therefore, size is a very important control factor when considering nanoparticle distribution and accumulation at target sites during drug delivery.