Bioinspired Screening of Anti-Adhesion Peptides against Blood Proteins for Intravenous Delivery of Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials (NMs) inevitably adsorb proteins in blood and form "protein corona" upon intravenous administration as drug carriers, potentially changing the biological properties and intended functions. Inspired by anti-adhesion properties of natural proteins, herein, we employed the one-bead one-compound (OBOC) combinatorial peptide library method to screen anti-adhesion peptides (AAPs) against proteins. The library beads displaying random peptides were screened with three fluorescent-labeled plasma proteins. The nonfluorescence beads, presumed to have anti-adhesion property against the proteins, were isolated for sequence determination. These identified AAPs were coated on gold nanorods (GNRs), enabling significant extension of the blood circulating half-life of these GNRs in mice to 37.8 h, much longer than that (26.6 h) of PEG-coated GNRs. In addition, such AAP coating was found to alter the biodistribution profile of GNRs in mice. The bioinspired screening strategy and resulting peptides show great potential for enhancing the delivery efficiency and targeting ability of NMs.