Enzymes Immobilized on Nanoparticles

Nanoparticles, as it is discussed before, are a very versatile group of nanomaterials. The different types of materials possess different properties, which, in combination with the different types of biomacromolecules immobilized onto their surface, can lead to a variety of applications. As discussed in Section 2.3 on carbon nanotubes, proteins, nucleic acids, antigens, peptides and drugs, can interact and be immobilized onto nanoparticles. 

Gold nanoparticles are widely used for protein immobilization, due to the intrinsic property of the gold to interact with proteins. The protein molecules can be directly attached on the gold nanoparticles surface, which renders gold nanoparticles one of the most biocompatible nanomaterials. Numerous works have been published on this field the last years [173-175], 

The most interesting applications of metallic or magnetic NPs, either used as conjugates with biological molecules or alone, are listed below [187]  

1) Cellular labeling/cell separation Cell labeling with MNPs is a method for in vivo cell separation, as the labeled cells can be detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [187, 188]. 

Candida rugosa lipase Fe304-chitosan NPs Enzyme immobilization [177] 

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