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  • Lysozyme as a pH-responsive valve for the controlled release of guest molecules from mesoporous silica.

Lysozyme as a pH-responsive valve for the controlled release of guest molecules from mesoporous silica.

Langmuir : the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids (2012-11-24)
Mengjun Xue, Gerhard H Findenegg
ABSTRACT

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles show promise as a drug-carrier vehicle for biomedical applications, but the development of simple, biocompatible capping systems has remained a challenge. We have found that lysozyme molecules can act as a pH-responsive nanovalve to block and unlock the pore entrances of MCM-41 nanoparticles for guest molecules. Our experiments indicate that pore blocking is due to a pH-induced conformational change by which the effective size of the protein is changed in a reversible manner. This effect may form the basis of a controlled-release system without the need to functionalize the pore mouth and caps.

MATERIALS
Product Number
Brand
Product Description

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Atto 647N maleimide, BioReagent, suitable for fluorescence, ≥90% (HPLC)
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