Issue 17, 2020

Size-dependent aggregation of hydrophobic nanoparticles in lipid membranes

Abstract

The aggregation of nanoparticles affects their reactivity, transport across biological membranes, uptake into cells, toxicity, and fate in the environment. In the case of membrane-embedded, hydrophobic nanoparticles the relationship between size and aggregation pattern is not well understood. Here, we explore this relationship for the case of spherically symmetrical nanoparticles using the MARTINI coarse-grained force field. We find that the free energy of dimerization depends strongly on nanoparticle size: the smallest molecules (mimicking C60 fullerene) aggregate only weakly, the largest ones form large three-dimensional aggregates causing major deformations in the host membrane, and the intermediate-sized particles show a tendency to form linear aggregates. Suppressing membrane undulations reduces very significantly aggregation, and substantially abolishes linear aggregation, suggesting a relationship between membrane curvature and aggregation geometry. At low concentration, when placed on membranes of variable curvature, the intermediate size nanoparticles move rapidly to high curvature regions – suggesting that they can sense membrane curvature. At high concentration, the same nanoparticles induce massive membrane deformations, without affecting the mechanical stability of the membrane – suggesting that they can generate membrane curvature.

Graphical abstract: Size-dependent aggregation of hydrophobic nanoparticles in lipid membranes

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
31 Janv. 2020
Accepted
09 Apr. 2020
First published
16 Apr. 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Nanoscale, 2020,12, 9452-9461

Size-dependent aggregation of hydrophobic nanoparticles in lipid membranes

E. Lavagna, J. Barnoud, G. Rossi and L. Monticelli, Nanoscale, 2020, 12, 9452 DOI: 10.1039/D0NR00868K

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, 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 commercial 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