Issue 11, 2022

Lipidomic analysis probes lipid coronas on hydrophilic nanoparticles from natural lung surfactant

Abstract

The large respiratory surface and high permeability make the lung promising in drug delivery of inhaled nanoparticles (NPs) as a portal and susceptible to nanosized airborne pollutions. Inhaled NPs first interact with the lung surfactant (LS) after depositing in the lung, where NPs tend to adsorb the LS molecules to form a biomolecular corona on their surface. Despite the extensive studies of protein coronas from blood plasma or serum, lipid coronas that are constituted by LS molecules are rarely investigated. Herein, we combine high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry and molecular dynamics simulation to unravel how a lipid corona is formed on hydrophilic NPs from a natural LS. Experiments demonstrate that positive surface charge, long incubation time, and external sonication can promote the formation of a complete lipid corona with compositions different from the bulk LS. Complementary to the experiments, molecular simulations indicate that the surface charge of NPs plays a vital role in the interactions of NPs with both zwitterionic and anionic lipids, which determines the wrap of the LS bilayer on the NP. In addition, the difference in the lipid composition between the corona and the bulk LS is caused by the affinity of NPs with lipids and the intrinsic structure of lipids. These results suggest that it is possible to control the formation and composition of lipid coronas on hydrophilic NPs by tuning the surface coating of NPs and incubation conditions.

Graphical abstract: Lipidomic analysis probes lipid coronas on hydrophilic nanoparticles from natural lung surfactant

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 юли 2022
Accepted
21 сеп 2022
First published
26 сеп 2022

Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2022,9, 4150-4161

Lipidomic analysis probes lipid coronas on hydrophilic nanoparticles from natural lung surfactant

X. Bai, S. M. Lam, P. Nie, M. Xu, S. Liu, G. Shui and G. Hu, Environ. Sci.: Nano, 2022, 9, 4150 DOI: 10.1039/D2EN00653G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements