SPION@polydehydroalanine hybrid particlesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c5ra01737h

• Main Authors: von der Lühe, Moritz, Günther, Ulrike, Weidner, Andreas, Gräfe, Christine, Clement, Joachim H, Dutz, Silvio, Schacher, Felix H
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2046-2069
• DOI: 10.1039/c5ra01737h

It is generally accepted that a protein corona is rapidly formed upon exposure of nanoparticles to biological fluids and that both the amount and the composition of adsorbed proteins affect the dispersion properties of the resulting particles. Hereby, the net charge and overall charge density of the pristine nanoparticles are supposed to play a crucial role. In an attempt to control both charge and charge distribution, we report on the coating of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) with different polyelectrolytes. Starting from orthogonally protected polydehydroalanine, the material can be easily transformed into a polyanion (poly( tert -butoxycarbonyl acrylic acid), P t BAA), polycation (poly(aminomethylacrylate), PAMA), or even a polyzwitterion (polydehydroalanine, PDha). While coating of SPIONs with P t BAA and PDha was shown to be successful, approaches using PAMA have failed so far. The dispersion properties of the resulting hybrid particles have been investigated using dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta-potential, and TEM measurements - the amount of adsorbed polymer was quantified using vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). We report on the coating of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles using polyanionic or polyzwitterionic materials based on polydehydroalanine. The resulting core-shell hybrid nanoparticles exhibit shells of different charge and thickness.