title: The effect of interactions on the cellular uptake of nanoparticles.
abstract: We present a simple two-state model to understand the size-dependent endocytosis of nanoparticles. Using this model, we elucidate the relevant energy terms required to understand the size-dependent uptake mechanism and verify it by correctly predicting the behavior at large and small particle sizes. In the absence of interactions between the nanoparticles, we observe an asymmetric distribution of sizes with maximum uptake at intermediate sizes and a minimum size cut-off below which there can be no endocytosis. Including the effect of interactions in our model has remarkable effects on the uptake characteristics. Attractive interactions shift the minimum size cut-off and increase the optimal uptake while repulsive interactions make the distribution more symmetric lowering the optimal uptake.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Science, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S102TN, UK. a.chaudhuri1@physics.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Abhishek
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chaudhuri
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Battaglia
authors.forename: Ramin
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Golestanian
mesh_terms: D004705:Endocytosis; D008954:Models, Biological; D015233:Models, Statistical; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000032:analysis*; D010316:Particle Size; D013816:Thermodynamics