Abstract
In applications in medicine and more specifically drug delivery, the dispersion stability of nanoparticles plays a significant role on their final performances. In this study, with the use of two laser technologies, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), we report a simple method to estimate the stability of nanoparticles dispersed in phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Stability has two features: (1) self-aggregation as the particles tend to stick to each other; (2) disappearance of particles as they adhere to surrounding substrate surfaces such as glass, metal, or polymer. By investigating the effects of sonication treatment and surface modification by five types of surfactants, including nonylphenol ethoxylate (NP9), polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP), human serum albumin (HSA), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and citrate ions on the dispersion stability, the varying self-aggregation and adhesion of gold nanoparticles dispersed in PBS are demonstrated. The results showed that PVP effectively prevented aggregation, while HSA exhibited the best performance in avoiding the adhesion of gold nanoparticle in PBS onto glass and metal. The simple principle of this method makes it a high potential to be applied to other nanoparticles, including virus particles, used in dispersing and processing.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
(2011) The dose makes the poison. Nat Nanotechnol 6(6):329
Alexis F, Pridgen E et al (2008) Factors affecting the clearance and biodistribution of polymeric nanoparticles. Mol Pharm 5(4):505–515
Barreto JA, O’Malley W et al (2011) Nanomaterials: applications in cancer imaging and therapy. Adv Mater 23(12):H18–H40
Berne BJ, Pecora R (2000) Dynamic light scattering: with applications to chemistry, biology, and physics. Dover Publications, Mineola
Boisselier E, Astruc D (2009) Gold nanoparticles in nanomedicine: preparations, imaging, diagnostics, therapies and toxicity. Chem Soc Rev 38(6):1759–1782
Bootz A, Vogel V et al (2004) Comparison of scanning electron microscopy, dynamic light scattering and analytical ultracentrifugation for the sizing of poly(butyl cyanoacrylate) nanoparticles. Eur J Pharm Biopharm 57(2):369–375
Cho EC, Zhang Q et al (2011) The effect of sedimentation and diffusion on cellular uptake of gold nanoparticles. Nat Nanotechnol 6(6):385–391
Crespo-Quesada M, Andanson J-M et al (2011) UV-ozone cleaning of supported poly(vinylpyrrolidone)-stabilized palladium nanocubes: effect of stabilizer removal on morphology and catalytic behavior. Langmuir 27(12):7909–7916
Du S, Kendall K et al (2010) Measuring number-concentrations of nanoparticles and viruses in liquids on-line. J Chem Technol Biotechnol 85(9):1223–1228
Filipe V, Hawe A et al (2010) Critical evaluation of nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA) by nanosight for the measurement of nanoparticles and protein aggregates. Pharm Res 27(5):796–810
Gullotti E, Yeo Y (2009) Extracellularly activated nanocarriers: a new paradigm of tumor targeted drug delivery. Mol Pharm 6(4):1041–1051
He XM, Carter DC (1992) Atomic structure and chemistry of human serum albumin. Nature 358(6383):209–215
Kendall K, Dhir A et al (2009) A new measure of molecular attractions between nanoparticles near kT adhesion energy. Nanotechnology 20(27):275701
Kendall K, Kendall M et al (2010a) Adhesion of cells, viruses and nanoparticles. Springer, New York
Kendall K, Du S et al (2010b) Virus concentration and adhesion measured by laser tracking. J Adhes 86(10):1029–1040
Kobayashi Y, Tadaki Y et al (2007) Deposition of gold nanoparticles on polystyrene spheres by electroless metal plating technique. J Phys Conf Ser 61:582–586
Lavik E, von Recum H (2011) The role of nanomaterials in translational medicine. ACS Nano 5(5):3419–3424
Lee JH, Kim DO et al (2007) Direct metallization of gold nanoparticles on a polystyrene bead surface using cationic gold ligands. Macromol Rapid Commun 28(5):634–640
Lee EP, Peng Z et al (2008) Electrocatalytic properties of Pt nanowires supported on Pt and W gauzes. ACS Nano 2(10):2167–2173
Malloy A, Carr B (2006) NanoParticle tracking analysis—the Halo™ System. Part Part Syst Charact 23(2):197–204
Radziuk D, Grigoriev D et al (2010) Ultrasound-assisted fusion of preformed gold nanoparticles. J Phys Chem C 114(4):1835–1843
Schellekens H (2002) Bioequivalence and the immunogenicity of biopharmaceuticals. Nat Rev Drug Discov 1(6):457–462
Sekhon BS, Kamboj SR (2010) Inorganic nanomedicine—part 2. Nanomed Nanotechnol Biol Med 6(5):612–618
Sungchul J, Daniel FB (2010) Adhesion mechanisms of nanoparticle silver to substrate materials: identification. Nanotechnology 21(5):055204
Takayasu MM, Galembeck F (1998) Determination of the equivalent radii and fractal dimension of polystyrene latex aggregates from sedimentation coefficients. J Colloid Interf Sci 202(1):84–88
Tian J, Jin J et al (2010) Self-assembly of gold nanoparticles and polystyrene: a highly versatile approach to the preparation of colloidal particles with polystyrene cores and gold nanoparticle coronae. Langmuir 26(11):8762–8768
Tian J, Zheng F et al (2011) Self-assembly of polystyrene with pendant hydrophilic gold nanoparticles: the influence of the hydrophilicity of the hybrid polymers. J Mater Chem 21(42):16928–16934
Zhong Z, Chen F et al (2006) Assembly of Au colloids into linear and spherical aggregates and effect of ultrasound irradiation on structure. J Mater Chem 16(5):489–495
Zhou J, Ralston J et al (2009) Functionalized gold nanoparticles: synthesis, structure and colloid stability. J Colloid Interf Sci 331(2):251–262
Acknowledgments
This study was supported by a Research Fellowship from Science City Research Alliance (SCRA) awarded to Dr Du.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
11051_2012_758_MOESM1_ESM.mpg
A short movie of NTA measurement for the sample with 30 ppm PVP added in gold nanoparticles dispersed in PBS. Supplementary material 1 (MPG 1674 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Du, S., Kendall, K., Toloueinia, P. et al. Aggregation and adhesion of gold nanoparticles in phosphate buffered saline. J Nanopart Res 14, 758 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-012-0758-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-012-0758-z