Designing super - selectivity in multivalent nano - particle binding 1

Submitted for the MAR12 Meeting of The American Physical Society Designing super-selectivity in multivalent nano-particle binding1 FRANCISCO MARTINEZ-VERACOECHEA, DAAN FRENKEL, University of Cambridge — A key challenge in nano-science is to design ligand-coated nanoparticles that can bind selectively to surfaces that display the cognate receptors above a threshold (surface) concentration. Nano-particles that bind monovalently to a target surface do not discriminate sharply between surfaces with high and low receptor coverage. In contrast, “multivalent” nano-particles that can bind to a larger number of ligands simultaneously, display regimes of “super-selectivity” where the fraction of bound particles varies sharply with the receptor concentration. We present numerical simulations that show that multivalent nano-particles can be designed such that they approach the “on-off” binding behavior ideal for receptorconcentration selective targeting. We propose a simple analytical model that accounts for the super-selective behavior of multi-valent nano-particles. We propose a simple rule of thumb to predict the conditions under which super-selectivity can be achieved. We validate our model predictions against the Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we investigate the role of multi-component ligand-receptor interactions in the enhancement of targeting selectivity. 1This work was supported by the ERC (Advanced Grant agreement 227758). Research partially carried out at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, BNL, which is supported by the US DOE, Office of BES, under Contract No. DE-AC0298CH10886. Francisco Martinez-Veracoechea University of Cambridge Date submitted: 02 Nov 2011 Electronic form version 1.4