Chapter 9: Dynamics of Protein–Nanoparticle Interactions Using NMR

The rapid advancement in nanoparticle-based therapeutics and their presence as diagnostic probes, drug-delivery systems, biosensors, and many others proposes the imperative need to understand and investigate the bio–nanointerfaces. Recently various novel nanoparticles with unique properties with different shapes, sizes and functionalities have arisen for diverse biomedical applications. Although the activities of nanoparticles as therapeutic agents are investigated in detail, the nature of their interactions with biological systems remains poorly understood. The interactions of nanoparticles with biological entities like proteins can be explored by various spectroscopic and non-spectroscopic techniques. Amongst these, solution NMR spectroscopy is an established technique to investigate the protein structure, dynamics and confirmational changes, however its applications in protein–nanoparticle interaction studies are only occasional and highly challenging. Therefore, this chapter is intended to provide readers with comprehensive information about protein–nanoparticle interactions, various characterization techniques and special emphasis on solution NMR spectroscopy to study the transient interactions between various nanoparticle systems (gold, silver, silica, polymer, carbon and lipid based) with proteins.