2014/10/27 by Anand Banerjee, Banerjee, Anand, Alexander Berzhkovskii +3
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Materials Science · #FOS: Biological sciences #Gold and Silver Nanoparticles Synthesis and Applications #Lipid Membrane Structure and Behavior #Nanoparticle-Based Drug Delivery #Subcellular Processes (q-bio.SC)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1411.7348
openalex publication_date 2014/10/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Experiments show that cellular uptake of nanoparticles, via receptor-mediated\nendocytosis, strongly depends on nanoparticle size. There is an optimal size,\napproximately 50 nm in diameter, at which cellular uptake is the highest. In\naddition, there is a maximum size, approximately 200 nm, beyond which uptake\nvia receptor-mediated endocytosis does not occur. By comparing results from\ndifferent experiments, we found that these sizes weakly depend on the type of\ncells, nanoparticles, and ligands used in the experiments. Here, we argue that\nthese observations are consequences of the energetics and assembly dynamics of\nthe protein coat that forms on the cytoplasmic side of the outer cell membrane\nduring receptor-mediated endocytosis. Specifically, we show that the energetics\nof coat formation imposes an upper bound on the size of the nanoparticles that\ncan be internalized, whereas the nanoparticle-size-dependent dynamics of coat\nassembly results in the optimal nanoparticle size. The weak dependence of the\noptimal and maximum sizes on cell-nanoparticle-ligand type also follows\nnaturally from our analysis.\n