Interaction of polystyrene nanoparticles with supported lipid bilayers: Impact of nanoparticle size and protein corona.

Polystyrene is one of the most widely used plastics. Here we report on the interaction of 50 nm- and 210 nm polystyrene nanoparticles (PSNPs) with human serum albumin and transferrin, as well as their effect on supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) using both experimental and theoretical approaches. We found by dynamic light scattering and atomic force microscopy measurements that the increase in the diameter for the PSNP-protein bioconjugates depends on both nanoparticle size and type of proteins. Our circular dichroism spectroscopy results demonstrate that the proteins preserve their structures when they interact with PSNPs at physiological temperature. Quartz crystal microbalance technique revealed that PSNPs and their bioconjugates show no strong interactions with SLBs. On the contrary, the molecular dynamics simulations showed that both proteins strongly bind to the lipid bilayer when compared to the binding of proteins to a PS surface model. The interaction was strongly dependent on the protein and lipid bilayer composition. Both the PSNPs and their bioconjugates show no toxicity in HUVEC cells; however, bare 210 nm PSNPs and 50 nm PSNP-transferrin bioconjugates showed an increase in the ROS production. Our study may be relevant for assessing different types of plastics and their impact on health. We investigated using experimental and theoretical methods the impact of polystyrene nanoparticle size on protein corona formation with human blood proteins and the interaction of nanoparticle-protein bioconjugates with supported lipid bilayers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.