New insight into protein–nanomaterial interactions with UV-visible spectroscopy and chemometrics: human serum albumin and silver nanoparticles

Abstract

In recent years, great efforts have focused on the exploration and fabrication of protein nanoconjugates due to potential applications in many fields including bioanalytical science, biosensors, biocatalysis, biofuel cells and bio-based nanodevices. An important aspect of our understanding of protein nanoconjugates is to quantitatively understand how proteins interact with nanomaterials. In this report, human serum albumin (HSA) and citrate-coated silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are selected as a case study of protein–nanomaterial interactions. UV-visible spectroscopy together with multivariate curve resolution by alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) algorithm is first exploited for the detailed study of AgNPs–HSA interactions. Introduction of the chemometrics tool allows extracting the kinetic profiles, spectra and distribution diagrams of two major absorbing pure species (AgNPs and AgNPs–HSA conjugate). These resolved profiles are then analysed to give the thermodynamic, kinetic and structural information of HSA binding to AgNPs. Transmission electron microscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy are used to further characterize the complex system. Moreover, a sensitive spectroscopic biosensor for HSA is fabricated with the MCR-ALS resolved concentration of absorbing pure species. It is found that the linear range for the HSA nanosensor was from 1.9 nM to 45.0 nM with a detection limit of 0.9 nM. It is believed that the proposed method will play an important role in the fabrication and optimization of a robust nanobiosensor or cross-reactive sensors array for the detection and identification of biocomponents.