Self-Assembled Aggregates of IgGs as Templates for the Growth of Clusters of Gold Nanoparticles

摘要

This paper describes a procedure for generating clusters of gold nanoparticles by using as templates oligomers (dimers, trimers, and tetramers) formed by self-assembly of immuno-globulin Gs (IgGs) with bivalent antigens, and by growing the nanoparticles from redox-active centers (aldehydes) derived from the integral carbohydrates located in the Fc portion of the IgGs. In this procedure, a significant fraction (15 ± 5 %) of these gold nanoparticles occurs in multimeric clusters (mostly dimers), with a distance of about 30 nm between particles in a cluster. This distance is consistent with the spacing between carbohydrate groups in separate antibody molecules when the antibodies are preassembled into aggregates. This method combines molecular recognition (to assemble nucleating centers for growth of nanoparticles) with redox-active functional groups on the biomolecule (to generate the nucleating centers for electroless growth of gold) to form locally ordered sets of nanoparticles.