Abstract
The extracellular space is nanostructured, populated by heterogeneous classes of nanoparticles, e.g., extracellular vesicles and lipoproteins, which “made by cells for cells'' mediate intercellular, inter-organ, cross-species, and cross-kingdom communication. However, while techniques to study ENP biology in-vitro and in-vivo are becoming available, knowledge of their colloidal and interfacial properties is poor, although much needed. This paper experimentally shows, for the first time, that the aggregation of citrate-capped gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) triggered by lipid vesicle membranes and the related characteristic redshift of the plasmonic signature also applies/extends to lipoproteins. Such interaction leads to the formation of AuNP-lipoprotein hybrid nanostructures and is sensitive to lipoprotein classes and AuNP/lipoprotein molar ratio, paving the way to further synthetic and analytical developments.