Scheme 1
From: Silver nanoparticle protein corona and toxicity: a mini-review
NP–protein interactions. The process of conjugation of the NP when inserted in biological media takes few minutes in the working conditions (I), which evolves to a NP coated with protein in equilibrium with the proteins in the medium (II), then later evolves towards an irreversible protein corona with proteins that are no longer in equilibrium with their in-solution counterparts (III) (reproduced from ref. Casals et al. [72] by permission of Wiley–VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)