The effect of Pexiganan as an antimicrobial peptide on the structural stability of gold nanoparticles

Yazdanicherati, Nafiseh; Tabarzad, Maryam; Daraei, Bahram; Ranjbar, Bijan

The effect of Pexiganan as an antimicrobial peptide on the structural stability of gold nanoparticles

Document Type : Original Research

Authors

Nafiseh Yazdanicherati ¹

Maryam Tabarzad ²

Bahram Daraei ³

Bijan Ranjbar ¹

¹ Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

² Protein Technology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

³ Department of Pharmacy, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The study of protein-gold nanoparticles interaction has shown valuable role in medicine, including: drug delivery, vaccine design, biosensors, bioassays, and imaging. Anti-microbial peptides (AMPs) are short amino acid sequences that have important function in the medicinal treatment of multi drug resistant infections. Binding of AMPs to gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) is benefitable for long-term storage, targeted delivery into cells and reduction of drug dosage. This requires preserving the shape and size of the nanoparticles involved in the interaction. In this study, we investigated the interaction of AuNPs in concentration of 2.28 × 10^-7 M with three concentrations (0.8, 2, 4 µM) of the antimicrobial peptide Pexiganan in different volumes (2-100µL), in order to study the changes in the shape, charge and size of the particles involved in the interaction by UV-absorption spectroscopy, DLS and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In all three concentrations, with the increase in peptide concentration resulted from increasing the volume of peptide solution, the surface charge of the particles became more positive and the size of the particles increased, this was observed in the form of a new peak at the values above 600 nm in the absorption spectrum of AuNPs, which is due to the interaction of the amin Π group of the amino acid lysine in peptide sequence with the surface of nanoparticles. As a result, the aggregation of AuNPs was observed at higher concentrations of peptide.

Keywords

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)

antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)

interaction of peptide-gold nanoparticles

DLS

Subjects

Nanotechnology

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