SAXS investigation of Pegylated Polylactide-co-glycolide Nanoparticles.

PLGA-NPs represent a promising class of nanomaterials with versatile applications in the fields of drug delivery, biomedicine, and biotechnology. The biodegradability, biocompatibility, and tuneable drug release kinetics of PLGA-NPs make them attractive candidates for drug encapsulation and delivery systems. However, one of the main obstacles for using NPs as drug carriers in clinical settings is the uncertainty about how they interact with proteins in the blood. These interactions can indeed modify both the behaviour of NPs, in terms of their efficacy in drug delivery and safety, and the functionality of the interacting proteins. In this project, we propose to investigate, with synchrotron Small-Angle X-Ray Scattering, the structure of different types of PLGA-NPs in the presence of different amounts of BSA. As a result, we will obtain information on the protein corona as well as on the dissociation constant and the Hill cooperative index that rule the NP-BSA interaction.