Zeolite Nanoparticles for Selective Sorption of Plasma Proteins

M. Rahimi, E.-P. Ng, K. Bakhtiari, M. Vinciguerra, H. Ali Ahmad, H. Awala, S. Mintova, M. Daghighi, F. Bakhshandeh Rostami, M. de Vries, M. M. Motazacker, M. P. Peppelenbosch (+2 others)
2015 Scientific Reports  
The affinity of zeolite nanoparticles (diameter of 8-12 nm) possessing high surface area and high pore volume towards human plasma proteins has been investigated. The protein composition (corona) of zeolite nanoparticles has been shown to be more dependent on the plasma protein concentrations and the type of zeolites than zeolite nanoparticles concentration. The number of proteins present in the corona of zeolite nanoparticles at 100% plasma (in vivo state) is less than with 10% plasma
more » ... This could be due to a competition between the proteins to occupy the corona of the zeolite nanoparticles. Moreover, a high selective adsorption for apolipoprotein C-III (APOC-III) and fibrinogen on the zeolite nanoparticles at high plasma concentration (100%) was observed. While the zeolite nanoparticles exposed to low plasma concentration (10%) exhibited a high selective adsorption for immunoglobulin gamma (i.e. IGHG1, IGHG2 and IGHG4) proteins. The zeolite nanoparticles can potentially be used for selectively capture of APOC-III in order to reduce the activation of lipoprotein lipase inhibition during hypertriglyceridemia treatment. The zeolite nanoparticles can be adapted to hemophilic patients (hemophilia A (F-VIII deficient) and hemophilia B (F-IX deficient)) with a risk of bleeding, and thus might be potentially used in combination with the existing therapy. Zeolites are low-density crystalline aluminosilicates possessing regular micropores (one-, two-and three-dimensional) with well-defined pore sizes and shapes. The well-defined structures of zeolites combine with hydrophilic/hydrophobic and porous nature render them as useful shape-selective molecular sieves and hosts for various guest molecules (organic and inorganic). A significant effort has been devoted to the preparation of zeolites with nanometer dimensions with enhanced accessibility of reactant molecules in order to achieve higher product yield/selectivity in catalytic reactions or fast diffusion in adsorption and ion exchanged processes 1,2 . In addition to the regular micropores, the zeolites nanoparticles contain meso-and macro-pores due to the close packing of homogeneous in size and morphology crystals. Additionally, the zeolite nanoparticles with a size smaller than 200 nm can be stabilized in suspensions with different concentrations that are colloidal stable and do not agglomerate with time 2 . Therefore, aluminosilicate and pure silicate zeolite nanoparticles are safely applied in protein adsorption for organ transplantation 3 , hemostatic material for wound healing 4 , MRI contrasting agent 5 , antibacterial agents 6 and drug delivery 7 . Moreover, the immobilization of biomolecules on the well-developed external surface of zeolite nanoparticles is the focus of intense activity in biotechnology and biomedicine [8] [9] [10] . EMT-and FAU-type zeolites have very low framework density (FD = 12.7-12.9 T/1000 Å), high porosity, diverse morphology and crystal sizes 11 . Unlike its cubic FAU polymorph that has only supercages (1.15 nm 3 ), the EMT-zeolite has two cages: hypocage (0.61 nm 3 ) and hypercage (1.24 nm 3 ) due to different stacking of faujasite sheets. As a result, it creates different catalytic and sorption properties for both materials 11 . Recently, it was reported that the large pore EMT-type nanosized zeolite can adsorb fibrinogen and apolipoproteins while keeping the same amount of albumin in human plasma 12 . Fibrinogen is a very complex, hydrophilic and bipolar molecule [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] . In opposite to fibrinogen, apolipoprotein C-III (APOC-III) is a simple, highly hydrophobic and non-polar molecule with a molecular weight of approximately 11 kDa. APOC-III inhibits very low-density lipoproteins (VLDL)-triglycerides, hepatic lipase (HL), and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) functions; the major function of LPL is to hydrolyze chylomicrons (CMs). As a result, the inhibition of LPL leads in the delay of degradation of triglyceride-rich particles (i.e. CM and VLDL), which is implicated in pathophysiological events such as cardiovascular diseases [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] . The adsorption specificity of proteins has been studied for several nanoparticles including gold, super paramagnetic iron oxide, silica, and polystyrene [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] . However, to our best knowledge, the adsorption specificity of proteins on zeolite nanoparticles has not been investigated so far. As a result, it hampers the development of rational targets for biomedical applications of zeolite nanoparticles. The aim of this paper is to study the selective sorption behavior of nanosized EMT-and FAU-zeolites for human plasma proteins with different concentrations of either the zeolites or the human plasma proteins.
doi:10.1038/srep17259 pmid:26616161 pmcid:PMC4663482 fatcat:7sxqbo6qube67efot7irvesqyi