Non-covalent loading of ionic liquid-functionalized nanoparticles for bovine serum albumin: Experiments and theoretical analysis

Abstract

Biomacromolecule-based nanomaterials have attracted much attention due to their excellent function in sensing, catalysis, medicine, biology and recognition. In this work, a silane-coupling ionic liquid, 1-(3-trimethoxysilylpropyl)-3-methylimidazolium chloride ([TMIM]Cl), was synthesized and applied to prepare ionic liquid-functionalized nanoparticles (SiO2@IL) using surface grafting technology. By employing multiple non-covalent interactions, including electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking, the obtained functional nanoparticles were able to bind bovine serum albumin (BSA) with strong binding affinity, which has been illustrated through experiments and theoretical calculations. Moreover, the stability of SiO2@IL further demonstrated that it is promising in applications for biomacromolecule immobilization.