NER: Investigation and Characterization of Adsorption of Self Assembling Amyloid Beta Protein Aggregates on Gold Nanoparticles Embedded in a Sol-Gel Thin Film

我们建议研究金纳米颗粒作为阿尔茨海默病的标志--淀粉样b多肽(Ab)核形成的有效标记物的应用。该项目的目标是建立一种诊断方法，将纳米颗粒的大小与聚集过程中产生的组装抗体的大小联系起来。其目的是1)编制金纳米粒子与抗体共存时的光谱表征，2)寻找抗体聚集体在硅胶-凝胶基质中以薄膜形式吸附或自组装的指示。随着蛋白质的聚集，光散射将大大增强。因此，我们将采用一种表面反射漫反射光谱技术，该技术非常适合测量散射表面区域的吸收光谱信息。光谱信息将仅与金纳米颗粒络合物的吸收信息以及用于估计聚集大小的光谱移位相关联。作为拟议研究的更广泛的影响，本研究可能导致吸附在金纳米颗粒上的蛋白质构象的关联方案，该关联方案可用于建立蛋白质聚集的标准诊断方法。通过这一研究项目，三名本科生将有机会从事纳米艺术科学的应用，并有机会使用高度专业化的仪器，如纽约州立大学奥尔巴尼分校纳米材料和纳米电子学先进技术中心的原子力显微镜。

We propose to investigate the application of gold nanoparticles as an effective marker for nuclei formation of amyloid b-peptides (Ab), which is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. The goal of this project is to establish a diagnostic method to relate the size of nanoparticles with the size of the assembled Ab arising from the aggregation process. The objectives are 1) to compile a spectroscopic characterization of gold nanoparticles when they coexist with Ab, 2) to find an indication of adsorption or self-assembly of Ab aggregates in a silica sol-gel matrix in thin film form. As aggregation of the protein takes place, light scattering will be strongly enhanced. Thus, we will adopt a surface reflectance diffuse spectroscopy technique, which is well suited for measuring the absorption spectroscopic information of the scattering surface area. The spectroscopic information will be correlated with the absorption information of gold nanoparticle complexes alone, and the spectral shift used for an estimation of the aggregation size. As a broader impact of the proposed study, the present study may result in a correlation scheme for protein conformation adsorbed on gold nanoparticles, which could be used to establish a standard diagnostic methodology for a protein aggregation. Through this research project, three undergraduate students will have an opportunity to be engaged in an application of nanopartcile science and they have an opportunity to use highly specialized instruments, such as an Atomic Force Microscope at the Center for Advanced Technology in Nanomaterials and Nanoelectronics, State University of New York at Albany.