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Abstract
Aim: A novel biomimetic strategy was employed for presenting antibodies on gold nanorods (NRs) to target growth factor receptors on cancer cells for use in photothermal therapy. Materials & methods: Polydopamine (PD) was polymerized onto gold NRs, and EGF receptor antibodies (anti-EGFR) were immobilized onto the layer. Cell-binding affinity and light-activated cell death of cancer cells incubated with anti-EGFR-PD-NRs were quantified by optical imaging. Results: PD was deposited onto gold NRs, and antibodies were bound to PD-coated NRs. Anti-EGFR-PD-NRs were stable in media, and were specifically bound to EGFR-overexpressing cells. Illumination of cells targeted with anti-EGFR-PD-NRs enhanced cell death compared with nonirradiated controls and cells treated with antibody-free NRs. Conclusion: PD facilitates the surface functionalization of gold NRs with biomolecules, allowing cell targeting and photothermal killing of cancer cells. PD can potentially coat a large variety of nanoparticles with targeting ligands as a strategy for biofunctionalization of diagnostic and therapeutic nanoparticles.
Original submitted 5 January 2012; Revised submitted 10 May 2012; Published online 14 August 2012
Financial & competing interests disclosure
KCL Black was supported by a Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIH F31 DE019750). JG Rivera was supported on a supplement to NIH grant RO1 EB005772. DC Zelasko-Leon was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship DGE-0824162. Further support was provided by the NIH grant R37 DE014193. J Yi was supported by the NIH grants R01 CA128641 and R01 EB003682, and NSF grant CBET-0937987. Portions of this research were performed at the Northwestern University Atomic and Nanoscale Characterization Experimental Center (IL, USA), the High Throughput Analysis Laboratory (IL, USA), the Integrated Molecular Structure Education and Research Center (IL, USA) and the Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging (IL, USA). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank D Crowe (University of Illinois-Chicago Dental School, IL, USA) for advice in oral cancer pathology and for providing the oral cancer cell lines. The authors also thank L Moore, M Richert, K Luckasevic and A Williams of Northwestern University (IL, USA) for experimental assistance.