EXPLOITING THE PROTEIN CORONA AROUND GOLD NANOPARTICLES IN MODULATION OF PROTEIN EXPRESSION

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) allow ease of conjugation to thiol-modified biomolecules like DNA and peptide. However, formation of protein corona could undesirably mask conjugated biomolecules’ performance. In this thesis, we explored new ways of exploiting protein corona, in terms of complementary proteins recruitment to conjugated biomolecules on AuNPs’ surface for better biomolecular performance. We demonstrated that by using AuNPs functionalized with DNA (AuNP-DNA), we were able to exploit protein corona formation for ribosomes recruitment to enhance mRNA translation of single and multiple mRNA species in HeLa lysate. Similarly, there was sustained enhancement in insulin secretion when rat insulin producing cells were dosed with AuNP-DNA. Lastly, we expanded the breadth of this technology by exploiting protein corona formation around AuNPs functionalized with peptide (AuNP-peptide) to recruit MDM2/p53 complexes for improved p53 proteins stability. The outcome of this thesis will provide more insights on ways protein corona could be exploited in engineering design.