Zhu, LinPelaz García, BeatrizChakraborty, IndranathParak, Wolfgang J.2019-09-112019-09-112019Zhu, L.; Pelaz, B.; Chakraborty, I.; Parak, W.J. Investigating Possible Enzymatic Degradation on Polymer Shells around Inorganic Nanoparticles. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2019, 20, 9351661-6596http://hdl.handle.net/10347/19756Inorganic iron oxide nanoparticle cores as model systems for inorganic nanoparticles were coated with shells of amphiphilic polymers, to which organic fluorophores were linked with different conjugation chemistries, including 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC) chemistry and two types of “click chemistry”. The nanoparticle-dye conjugates were exposed to different enzymes/enzyme mixtures in order to investigate potential enzymatic degradation of the fluorophore-modified polymer shell. The release of the dyes and polymer fragments upon enzymatic digestion was quantified by using fluorescence spectroscopy. The data indicate that enzymatic cleavage of the fluorophore-modified organic surface coating around the inorganic nanoparticles in fact depends on the used conjugation chemistry, together with the types of enzymes to which the nanoparticle-dye conjugates are exposedeng© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)Atribución 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/NanoparticlesSurface engineeringEnzymatic degradationPolymer coatingBioconjugationClick chemistryNanoparticle degradationjournal article10.3390/ijms200409351422-0067open access