Preformed albumin corona, a protective coating for nanoparticles based drug delivery system

Abstract

The non-specific interaction between nanoparticles (NPs) and plasma proteins occurs immediately after NPs enter the blood, resulting in the formation of the protein corona that thereafter replaces the original NPs and becomes what the organs and cells really see. Consequently, the in vivo fate of NPs and the biological responses to the NPs are changed. This is one substantial reason for the two main problems of the NPs based drug delivery system, i.e. nanotoxicity and rapid clearance of NPs from the blood after intravenous injection. Here, we demonstrate the successful application of the preformed albumin corona in inhibiting the plasma proteins adsorption and decreasing the complement activation, and ultimately in prolonging the blood circulation time and reducing the toxicity of the polymeric PHBHHx NPs. Since the interaction of proteins with various nano-materials and/or -particles is ubiquitous, pre-forming albumin corona has a great potential to be a versatile strategy for optimizing the NPs based drug delivery system.

Keywords: Albumin; Long circulation; Nanoparticles; Opsonization; Protein adsorption; Toxicity.