BIOINTERACTIONS AND BIOLOGICAL FATE OF NANOMATERIALS
When designing a nanomaterial (NM) for a specific biomedical application, either labelling, imaging, therapy, or sensing. It is necessary to bear in mind that when NMs enter a biological fluid (e.g., blood plasma or interstitial fluid), they are coated with a plethora of ions and biomolecules, such as lipids, metabolites, sugars, and especially proteins, which will adsorb onto the surface of the NMs, mediated by van der Waals, electrostatic, hydrogen bonding, and hydrophilic/hydrophobic interactions. The sum of all adsorption processes will result in the formation of the so-called ‘biomolecule corona’. Hence, the properties of corona-covered NMs differ (in most cases significantly) from the intrinsic physicochemical properties of the NPs, before their exposure to biological environments. This biocorona becomes the biologically significant entity “seen” by cells and will determine
the mutual cell− NM interactions and, subsequently, the NMs uptake and trafficking, conditioning their biodistribution and therapeutical response in vivo. However, the fundamental cause−effect relationships are still ill-defined so that a better understanding of the NM− biological entity interactions is essential in order to develop new functional and safe NMs, which is one of the most urgent areas of collaborative research in materials science and biology. In this manner, we are interested in characterizing the interaction of the developed NMs with biologically relevant entities, such as proteins (protein corona), biological relevant fluids, cells and animals. We use and develop methods and protocols (e.g., colloidal stability, nanotoxicology, internalization, excretion, etc.) to assess the impact of our NMs in living entities, as well as to characterize what happens to “our materials” in biologically relevant environments (e.g., cell cultures, animals, etc.).