Figure 1.
Overview of the generation and deposition strategy for the study.
Particles are generated in the aerosol phase and characterized, led to the deposition chamber, and deposited into various physiological solutions of increasing biological complexity, followed by characterization in the solution.
Figure 2.
Principle of particle generation, sintering and size selection process.
1) Evaporation condensation furnace, formation of primary particles 5–6 nm. 2) Primary particles coagulate into larger agglomerates. 3) Sintering furnace, allows for generation of spherical AuNP. 4) Spherical 60 nm AuNP are selected from the airborne particle stream using a DMA. 5) Agglomerate 60 nm AuNP are selected from the airborne particle stream using a DMA.
Figure 3.
Airborne AuNP characteristics.
A) The original number size distribution of the sintered AuNP aerosol, as well as the monodisperse particles for deposition in physiological solution (60 nm). B) 60 nm AuNP agglomerates visualized by TEM. C) 60 nm sintered spherical AuNPs visualized by TEM.
Figure 4.
UV absorbance spectra of AuNPs in BSA and porcine blood serum solutions.
Figure 5.
Size distributions of AuNPs after deposition into biological fluids, dashed line represents AuNP aerosol fraction selected for deposition.
A) PTA measurement of AuNP in BSA solution. B) DLS measurements of AuNP in BSA solution at three different dilution levels in BSA buffer. C) PTA measurements for AuNP in 100% serum, 10% serum and BSA buffer. D) DLS measurements for AuNPs in 100% serum, 10% serum and BSA. The DLS distributions are intensity weighted in the figure.
Table 1.
Hydrodynamic sizes of the AuNP:Protein complexes by DLS and PTA along with the standard deviation of the mean value estimated from repeated measurements.
Figure 6.
PTA characterization of AuNP agglomerates.
A) PTA size measurements of AuNP:Protein complexes in BSA and lung fluid. B) PTA size measurements of AuNP:Protein complexes in 10% and 100% porcine serum.
Figure 7.
PTA and DLS characterization of AuNP:lung fluid complexes.
A) PTA size measurement of AuNP:lung fluid complexes. B) DLS size measurements of AuNP:lung fluid complexes.
Figure 8.
Protein corona characterizations of AuNP in 10% serum solution.
Lanes 1 and 4: Molecular weight (kDa) of known proteins on a 15% SDS-PAGE. Lane 2: Serum proteins bound to spherical AuNPs. Lane 3: Serum proteins found in the pellet without deposited AuNP. Lane 5: Serum proteins bound to spherical AuNPs. Lane 6: Serum proteins bound to agglomerate AuNPs. Lane 7. Molecular weight (kDa) of known proteins on a 12% SDS-PAGE. Lanes 8 and 9: Proteins on spherical AuNPs deposited into BSA solution and transferred/incubated into 10% porcine serum before centrifugation and corona characterization (68 kDa band in brackets).