Examination of the interaction between bovine albumin and gold nanoparticles

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years due to their potential uses in electronics, biotechnology, biomedicine, and catalysis. This is due to several appealing properties, including optical characteristics, size-dependent characteristics, great conductivity, non-toxicity, and their ability to be easily and broadly functionalized. In the present study, to produce AuNPs employing chitosan to act as reducing/capping agent by thermal reduction procedures in chitosan-acetic acid-water were used. A variety of biomolecules, mainly proteins, have recently attracted a lot of attention for their ability to stabilize AuNPs, which has implications for targeted drug administration, bioimaging, and diagnostics. Interaction between gold nanoparticles and Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) has been examined using UV-absorption spectrophotometry, FT-IR spectroscopy, Transmittance Electron Microscopy (TEM), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), and dynamic light scattering. Based on the information gathered by the above techniques, the influence of concentration of BSA upon the stability of the gold nanoparticles and the structural modifications that occur in BSA when it interacts with the gold nanoparticles are examined, and a potential conjugation mechanism is put forth.