Protein corona composition of PEGylated nanoparticles correlates strongly with amino acid composition of protein surface

Extensive molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the interactions between proteins and poly(ethylene glycol)(PEG) can be described in terms of the surface composition of the proteins. PEG molecules accumulate around non-polar residues while avoiding polar ones. A solvent-accessible-surface-area model of protein adsorption on PEGylated nanoparticles accurately fits a large set of data on the composition of the protein corona recently obtained by label-free proteomic mass spectrometry.