Understanding Biocorona Formation on Nanoparticles in Plant Biofluids

In order to meet growing food and energy demands caused by climate change and population growth, nanoparticle-based technologies are emerging as tools to improve crop yields by protecting crops from microbial disease, enhancing soil nutrient composition, and monitoring plant health. As these nanoparticles are used in the field, proteins in these biological environments adsorb to nanoparticle surfaces forming protein coronas, which could alter the intended function of the nanoparticle. Characterizing the composition of protein coronas could assist in making more efficient nanotechnologies that minimally interact with the surrounding environment or leverage high-binding proteins with beneficial impacts. In this work, we characterize protein corona formed on polystyrene nanoparticles in suspension cell secretions and homogenized leaf tissue of Arabidopsis thaliana, a species with a well-characterized proteome. The collected suspension cell secretions were lyophilized and incubated with polystyrene nanoparticles, a nanoparticle extensively used in other studies as a model for plastic. The collected homogenized leaf tissue was incubated with gold nanoparticles, polystyrene nanoparticles, and single walled carbon nanotubes. Gel electrophoresis (using SDS-Page gels) and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) was then used to see whether there was a difference in the amount of free proteins in solution and characterize proteins adsorbed.