Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles, its characterization, and chaperone-like activity in the aggregation inhibition of α-chymotrypsinogen A

Abstract

Consumption of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has been increased many folds due to its antimicrobial actions resulting in its widespread incorporation into a wide range of biomedical and consumer products. Still, enough research is needed to clearly understand the effect of these nanoparticles on the conformations of important macromolecules like proteins under different pathophysiological conditions. Pointing towards the situation, we carefully designed an in vitro study to elucidate the effect of green AgNPs on the aggregation pattern of α-chymotrypsinogen A at a human pathological body temperature. We observed that the B-AgNPs inhibited the aggregation in αCgn-A in a concentration-dependent manner showing maximum inhibition at 30 μg/ml above which the effect of aggregation inhibition was reduced as evident at 40 and 50 μg/ml concentrations of B-AgNPs. Further, in our in vitro analysis, we found that the B-AgNPs of lower sizes has potential chaperone-like activity at pathological body temperature, which can be used as a component of the drug to prevent protein aggregation after further verification in animal models.

Keywords: Aggregation; Circular dichroism; Green synthesis; Silver nanoparticles; Transmission electron microscopy; α-Chymotrypsinogen A.