Disulfide-Mediated Bioconjugation: Disulfide Formationand Restructuring on the Surface of Nanomanufactured (Microfluidics)Nanoparticles

This study is about 1) nanomanufacturing (focusing on microfluidic-assisted nanoprecipitation), 2) advanced colloid characterization (focusing on field flow fractionation, FFF), 3) the possible re-structuring of surface disulfides. Disulfides are dynamic and exchangeable groups, and here we specifically focus firstly on their use to introduce biofunctional group, and secondly on their re-organization, which may lead to variable surface chemistries and uncontrolled cell interactions. The particles were obtained via microfluidic-assisted (flow-focused) nanoprecipitation of poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(e-caprolactone) (PEG-PCL) bearing or not a 2-pyridyl disulfide (PDS) terminal group, which quantitatively exchanges with thiols in solution. In this study, we have paid specific attention to size characterization, thereby also demonstrating the limitations of dynamic light scattering (DLS) as a stand-alone technique. By using Asymmetric Flow Field Flow Fractionation (AF4) coupled with DLS, static light scatter...