title: Metal nanoclusters: Protein corona formation and implications for biological applications.
abstract: Metal nanoclusters (NCs) are a new type of nanoprobe with great potential in various biological applications. For biocompatible and efficient utilization of NCs, a thorough understanding of their interactions with biological systems is highly important. Herein, we focus on recent studies addressing interactions between metal NCs and proteins as well as implications for their further biological application. These findings show that protein adsorption not only affects the photophysical properties of NCs, but also influences their subsequent biological behavior, i.e., cellular uptake and cytotoxicity. Moreover, specific protein-NC interactions have also been harnessed to develop novel protein discrimination strategies.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics and Center for Functional Nanostructures, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics and Center for Functional Nanostructures, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany; Institute of Toxicology and Genetics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany; Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. Electronic address: uli@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Gerd Ulrich
authors.initials: GU
authors.lastname: Nienhaus
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D000066970:Protein Corona / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000066970:Protein Corona
keywords: Cell imaging; Endocytosis; Metal nanoclusters; Nanoprobes; Protein corona