Effect of interactions on the cellular uptake of nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a two-state model to analyze how nanoparticle size and interactions influence cellular uptake, revealing key energy factors and predicting size-dependent endocytosis behavior.

Contribution

The study develops a simple yet effective model incorporating interactions to explain size-dependent nanoparticle endocytosis, advancing understanding of cellular uptake mechanisms.

Findings

Size-dependent uptake peaks at intermediate nanoparticle sizes.

Interactions significantly alter uptake efficiency and size distribution.

Repulsive interactions promote symmetric size distribution with lower optimal uptake.

Abstract

We present a simple two-state model to understand the size-dependent endocytosis of nanoparticles. Using this model, we elucidate the relevant energy terms required to understand the size-dependent uptake mechanism and verify it by correctly predicting the behavior at large and small particle sizes. In the absence of interactions between the nanoparticles we observe an asymmetric distribution of sizes with maximum uptake at intermediate sizes and a minimum size cut-off below which there can be no endocytosis. Including the effect of interactions in our model has remarkable effects on the uptake characteristics. Attractive interactions shift the minimum size cut-off and increase the optimal uptake while repulsive interactions make the distribution more symmetric lowering the optimal uptake.