Effects of nanoparticle size and charge on interactions with self-assembled collagen

摘要: HypothesisInsights into bone formation have suggested that the critical first step in the biomineralization process is the integration of small (nanometer dimension) mineral clusters into collagen fibers. Not only is such behavior of interest for understanding biomineralization but also should be important to nanotoxicology because collagen is a major component of structural tissues in the human body and accounts for more than 25% of the whole body protein content. Here, utilizing the current insights from biomineralization, we hypothesize that the binding affinity of nanoparticles to self-assembled collagen fibers is size and surface charge dependent.ExperimentsWe developed a self-assembled collagen substrate compatible with Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), which is very sensitive to mechanical changes of the substrate as a consequence of nanoparticle binding. QCM-D …