Description
General Description
Lipoic Acid-PEG-COOH (LA-PEG-COOH) is a versatile heterobifunctional PEG linker designed for nanoparticle surface engineering and bioconjugation. The terminal lipoic acid contains a cyclic disulfide that readily anchors onto gold nanoparticles, gold electrodes, and other noble metal surfaces through strong sulfur-metal interactions, providing greater stability than many monothiol-based surface ligands.
The terminal carboxylic acid group can be readily activated using carbodiimide chemistry (EDC/NHS) to react with primary amines on proteins, peptides, antibodies, enzymes, nanoparticles, and biomaterial surfaces, forming stable amide bonds.
The hydrophilic PEG spacer enhances water solubility, molecular flexibility, and biocompatibility while minimizing steric hindrance and reducing nonspecific protein adsorption. Lipoic Acid-PEG-COOH is widely employed in biosensor fabrication, gold nanoparticle functionalization, molecular imaging, targeted drug delivery, diagnostic assays, and advanced biomaterials development.
Applications
- Gold nanoparticle functionalization
- Gold surface modification
- Biosensor fabrication
- Protein conjugation
- Antibody conjugation
- Surface PEGylation
- Nanoparticle engineering
- Drug delivery systems
- Molecular imaging
- Biomaterials research
Features and Benefits
- Stable lipoic acid gold anchor
- Terminal carboxylic acid group
- Compatible with EDC/NHS coupling
- Strong gold surface binding
- Excellent water solubility
- Excellent biocompatibility
- Reduced nonspecific protein adsorption
- Versatile heterobifunctional PEG linker
- Available in multiple PEG molecular weights
