Surface PEGylation and PASylation to regulate nanoparticle interactions with biological environment

Abstract

Many researchers are developing nanocarriers in order to minimalize side effects of cytotoxic drugs during cancer treatment via chemotherapy. Nanocarriers can serve as a suitable platform for targeted drug delivery. To overcome their failure in in vivo use, the effects of surface modifications (PEGylation and PASylation) of natural nanocarriers based on apoferritin were tested in this work. Various properties of these modified apoferitin nanoparticles were studied, such as their size or degree of hemolysis. TEM characterization was also performed. The formation of hard coronas on these particles in plasma environment was evaluated using SDS-PAGE electrophoresis. The best biocompatibility results were obtained using apoferritin nanoparticles with PEG surface modification.