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- All Subjects: Nanoparticles
- Creators: Ceton, Ricki Ronea
- Creators: Green, Matthew
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
Gold nanoparticles are valuable for their distinct properties and nanotechnology applications. Because their properties are controlled in part by nanoparticle size, manipulation of synthesis method is vital, since the chosen synthesis method has a significant effect on nanoparticle size. By aiding mediating synthesis with proteins, unique nanoparticle structures can form, which open new possibilities for potential applications. Furthermore, protein-mediated synthesis favors conditions that are more environmentally and biologically friendly than traditional synthesis methods. Thus far, gold particles have been synthesized through mediation with jack bean urease (JBU) and para mercaptobenzoic acid (p-MBA). Nanoparticles synthesized with JBU were 80-90nm diameter in size, while those mediated by p-MBA were revealed by TEM to have a size between 1-3 nm, which was consistent with the expectation based on the black-red color of solution. Future trials will feature replacement of p-MBA by amino acids of similar structure, followed by peptides containing similarly structured amino acids.
ContributorsHathorn, Gregory Michael (Author) / Nannenga, Brent (Thesis director) / Green, Matthew (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Neurological disorders are difficult to treat with current drug delivery methods due to their inefficiency and the lack of knowledge of the mechanisms behind drug delivery across the blood brain barrier (BBB). Nanoparticles (NPs) are a promising drug delivery method due to their biocompatibility and ability to be modified by cell penetrating peptides, such as transactivating transciptor (TAT) peptide, which has been shown to increase efficiency of delivery. There are multiple proposed mechanisms of TAT-mediated delivery that also have size restrictions on the molecules that can undergo each BBB crossing mechanism. The effect of nanoparticle size on TAT-mediated delivery in vivo is an important aspect to research in order to better understand the delivery mechanisms and to create more efficient NPs. NPs called FluoSpheres are used because they come in defined diameters unlike polymeric NPs that have a broad distribution of diameters. Both modified and unmodified 100nm and 200nm NPs were able to bypass the BBB and were seen in the brain, spinal cord, liver, and spleen using confocal microscopy and a biodistribution study. Statistically significant differences in delivery rate of the different sized NPs or between TAT-modified and unmodified NPs were not found. Therefore in future work a larger range of diameter size will be evaluated. Also the unmodified NPs will be conjugated with scrambled peptide to ensure that both unmodified and TAT-modified NPs are prepared in identical fashion to better understand the role of size on TAT targeting. Although all the NPs were able to bypass the BBB, future work will hopefully provide a better representation of how NP size effects the rate of TAT-mediated delivery to the CNS.
ContributorsCeton, Ricki Ronea (Author) / Stabenfeldt, Sarah (Thesis director) / Sirianni, Rachael (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05