Tag: albumin

Hot off the press: paper on Preformed Human Serum Albumin Corona on Iron Oxide Nanoparticles

Congratulations to all the authors of the paper Insights into Preformed Human Serum Albumin Corona on Iron Oxide Nanoparticles: Structure, Effect of Particle Size, Impact on MRI Efficiency, and Metabolization! This work was published online the 19th June 2019 in the journal Applied Biomaterials from the American Society of Chemistry. Do not miss it!

Anna Roig attended the 2018 Albus Scientific Awards Ceremony at Grifols

On 10th Otober 2018 Anna Roig attended the 2018 Albus Scientific Awards Ceremony at Grifols headquarters in Sant Cugat. As one of the two awardees of the 2017 edition, she presented the results on the Albumin-iron oxide nanocages project. Carlos Moya is the post-doc working in this project. This year’s award recipients are:

 

  • Paolo Caraceni, MD, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna Bologna, Italy
    Project: Long‐term albumin administration in patients with decompensated cirrhosis: clinical and pathophysiological implications
  • Hanadi Sleiman, PhD, Department of Chemistry, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
    Project: Albumin as a passive targeting agent: effect of the protein binding on stability, bio distribution and therapeutic outcome of oligonucleotides and DNA nanoparticles
Anna Roig presenting the project on albumin nanocages

Welcome to the postdoc Carles Moya

New year and new members at the N&N group! Today we introduce our postdoctoral fellow Carles Moya: 

I obtained my Bs.C. in Chemistry in 2008 at the Universitat de Barcelona. After that, I studied a Master degree at the same University. During my research I focused on the synthesis of bio-organometallic compounds under the supervision of prof. Concepcion Lopez. Then I joined to Magnetic Nanomaterials group under the supervision of prof. Amilcar Labarta where I developed new chemical routes to obtain magnetic Nanoparticles based on iron oxides. Their magnetic properties were also  studied and correlated to their structural properties. After my PhD I took a postdoctoral position at the University of Carnegie Mellon where I worked in  prof. Sara Majetich’s group. In Pittsburgh, I focused on the study of the magnetic and structural properties of assemblies of single-crystal cube-shaped and spherical Fe3ONanoparticles obtained from high temperature decomposition method.  During this period I acquire a wide array of skills related to performing research in nanotechnology. These skills include synthesis of nanomaterials by chemistry methods, preparation of nanoparticle assemblies, surface functionalization, structural and magnetic characterization among others. Recently I joined to Nanoparticles and Nanocomposites group with a Grifolls grant. Here I am going to study albumin nanocages using iron oxide Nanoparticles as a template. In addition, I am going to focus on the potential biomedical applications of those structures such as MRI contrast agents and drug delivery. 

Hope you enjoy your time at the N&N group Carlos!

Anna Roig gets an Albus Grifols Scientific Award!

Good news!

Anna Roig has been awarded with the Albus Award 2017, one of the Scientific Awards offered by Grifols, the pharmaceutical and chemical multinational company. The Award consists of 50,000 € to carry out the project “Albumin-iron oxide nanocages”

The Albus Program is an annual international award focused on innovative ideas related to albumin and its role as a therapeutic product. The Program offers two awards of 50,000 € each year. The proposals are assessed by an independent review committee formed by world-wide recognized experts

Anna’s “Albumin-iron oxide nanocages” project gets inspiration from the apoferritin nanoconstructs. It aims at investigating if albumin nanocages, consisting of a few units of albumin self-assembled and self-standing, can be formed by using inorganic iron oxide nanoparticles as semi-sacrificial templates. The albumin nanocages could then find application as a nanomedicinal product for imaging and drug delivery.

The winners will be given their Awards at a Ceremony that will take place on October 3rd, 2017 in Barcelona.

Anna Laromaine and Zhongrui Luo participate in the VI Spanish Worm Meeting in Valencia

Anna and Luo will attend on 9th-10th March the VI Spanish Worm Meeting in Valencia (Spain). 

Anna will give the talk on “Evaluation of albumin pre-coated SPIONS in cell culture and C. elegans on Friday, 10th March, at 9 am. 

Luo will present the poster on Evaluation of the nano-bio interactions between Au-NPs and Caenorhabditis elegans (Laura González-Moragas, Zhongrui Luo, Anna Roig, Anna Laromaine). 

The Spanish Worm Meeting (SWM) is a biennial gathering of the scientific communitiy working with C. elegans. It covers a wide range of topics, including development, neurobiology, aging and disease, metabolism and new technologies applied to C. elegans

In the website www.gusano.info you can find information about previous Spanish Worm Meetings and resources related to C. elegans (research groups, wormbase, wormbook, etc.).

We hope they enjoy the meeting!

Hot off the press: New article accepted in Acta Biomaterialia!

abstract-baThe article “Bio-identity and fate of albumin-coated SPIONs evaluated in cells and by the C. elegans model” (Si-Ming YuLaura González-MoragasMaria MillaAndroniki KolovouRachel Santarella-MellwigYannick SchwabAnna LaromaineAnna Roig) is now published online in Acta Biomaterialia at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S174270611630349X.
doi:10.1016/j.actbio.2016.07.024.

Abstract: Nanoparticles, whose surface adsorbs proteins in an uncontrolled and non-reproducible manner will have limited uses as nanomedicinal products. A promising approach to avoid nanoparticle non-specific interactions with proteins is to design bio-hybrids by purposely pre-forming a protein corona around the inorganic cores. Here, we investigate, in vitro and in vivo, the newly acquired bio-identity of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) upon their functionalization with a pre-formed and well-defined bovine serum albumin (BSA) corona. Cellular uptake, intracellular particle distribution and cytotoxicity were studied in two cell lines: adherent and non-adherent cells. BSA decreases nanoparticle internalization in both cell lines and protects the iron core once they have been internalized. The physiological response to the nanoparticles is then in vivo evaluated by oral administration to Caenorhabditis elegans, which was selected as a model of a functional intestinal barrier. Nanoparticle biodistribution, at single particle resolution, is studied by transmission electron microscopy. The analysis reveals that the acidic intestinal environment partially digests uncoated SPIONs but does not affect BSA-coated ones. It also discloses that some particles could enter the nematode’s enterocytes, likely by endocytosis which is a different pathway than the one described for the worm nutrients.

Keywords: Iron oxide nanoparticlesProtein coronaCytotoxicityC. elegans; Biodistribution.

Congratulations to all the authors! 

 

Hot off the press at Nanoscale!

Albumin-coated SPIONs: An experimental and theoretical evaluation of protein conformation, binding affinity, and competition with serum proteinsby Siming Yu, Alex Perálvarez-Marín, Caterina Minelli, Jordi Faraudo, Anna Roig* and Anna Laromaine*, has just been accepted for publication in Nanoscale, DOI: 10.1039/C6NR01732K.

nanoscale-hotAmong inorganic nanoparticles, superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) show great promise for medicine. In this work, we study in detail the formation, composition, and structure of a monolayer of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on SPIONs. We determine, both by molecular simulations and experimentally, that ten molecules of BSA form a monolayer of BSA around  the SPIONs and their binding strength to the SPIONs is about 3.5×10–4 M, ten times higher than the adsorption of fetal bovine serum (FBS) on the same SPIONs. We elucidate a strong electrostatic interaction between BSA and the SPIONs, although the secondary structure of the protein is not affected. We present data that supports the strong binding of the BSA layer on SPIONs and the properties of the BSA layer as a protein-resistant coating. We believe that a complete understanding of the behavior and morphology of BSA-SPIONs and how the protein interacts with SPIONs is crucial for improving NP surface design and expanding the potential applications of SPIONs in nanomedicine.

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