β-Lactoglobulin-gold nanoparticles interface and its interaction with some anticancer drugs – an approach for targeted drug delivery

Abstract

The protein-nanoparticle interface plays a crucial role in drug binding and stability, in turn enhancing efficacy in targeted drug delivery. In the present study, whey protein β-lactoglobulin (BLG) is conjugated with gold nanoparticles (AuNP) and its interaction with curcumin (CUR) and gemcitabine (GEM) has been explored. Further, AuNP-BLG conjugate interactions with anticancer drugs were characterized using dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta potential, UV-visible, Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence, circular dichroism along with molecular dynamics simulation. The cytotoxicity studies were performed using breast cancer cell lines (MCF-7). ∼8 µM of BLG resides on AuNP (∼29 nm) surface revealed by DLS. Raman scattering of AuNP-BLG conjugate showed orientation of the central calyx of BLG towards solvent. BLG fluorescence confirmed the interaction between AuNP-BLG conjugate with drugs and indicated strong binding and affinity (for CUR K_D = 3.71 x 10⁸ M ⁻¹, n = 1.83, and for GEM K_D = 3.78 x 10³ M ⁻¹, n = 0.94), enhanced in the presence of AuNP. CD and Raman analysis exhibited selective hydrophilic and hydrophobic conformations induced by drug binding. Computational studies on BLG-drug complexes revealed that the residues Pro38, Leu39 and Met107 are largely associated with CUR binding, while GEM interaction is via hydrophilic contacts which significantly matches with spectroscopic investigation. IC₅₀ values were calculated for all components of this loading system on MCF-7. The possible mechanisms of interaction between AuNP-BLG with anticancer drugs has been explored at the molecular level. We believe that these conjugates could be considered in the targeted drug delivery studies for cancer research.

Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Keywords:

• β-lactoglobulin
• gold nanoparticle
• curcumin
• gemcitabine
• Raman scattering
• fluorescence
• simulation

Acknowledgements

The first author is thankful to the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, for financial assistant under the DST PURSE-SCHEME, and University of Mumbai. Authors are grateful to Mrs. Geetanjali Dhotre, Department of chemical sciences, TIFR, Mumbai, for providing MALDI-TOF facility.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.