Poly (N-vinylpyrrolidone) modification mitigates plasma protein corona formation on phosphomolybdate-based nanoparticles

Phosphomolybdate-based nanoparticles (PMo(12)-based NPs) have been commonly applied in nanomedicine. However, upon contact with biofluids, proteins are quickly adsorbed onto the NPs surface to form a protein corona, which induces the opsonization and facilitates the rapid clearance of the NPs by macrophage uptake. Herein, we introduce a family of structurally homologous PMo(12)-based NPs (CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(x)(x = 0 ~ 1) NPs) capping diverse content of zwitterionic polymer poly (N-vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP) to regulate the protein corona formation on PMo(12)-based NPs. The fluorescence quenching data indicate that the introduction of PVP effectively reduces the number of binding sites of proteins on PMo(12)-based NPs. Molecular docking simulations results show that the contact surface area and binding energy of proteins to CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(1) NPs are smaller than the CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(0) NPs. The liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) is further applied to analyze and quantify the compositions of the human plasma corona formation on CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(x)(x = 0 ~ 1) NPs. The number of plasma protein groups adsorption on CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(1) NPs, compared to CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(0) NPs, decreases from 372 to 271. In addition, 76 differentially adsorption proteins are identified between CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(0) and CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(1) NPs, in which apolipoprotein is up-regulated in CDS-PMo(12)@PVP(1) NPs. The apolipoprotein adsorption onto the NPs is proposed to have dysoponic activity and enhance the circulation time of NPs. Our findings demonstrate that PVP grafting on PMo(12)-based NPs is a promising strategy to improve the anti-biofouling property for PMo(12)-based nanodrug design. [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12951-021-01140-8.