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Abstract
Background: Photothermal response of plasmonic nanomaterials can be utilized for a number of therapeutic applications such as the ablation of solid tumors. Methods & results: Gold nanoparticles were prepared using different methods. After optimization, we applied an aqueous plant extract as the reducing and capping agent of gold and maximized the near-infrared absorption (650–900 nm). Resultant nanoparticles showed good biocompatibility when tested in vitro in human keratinocytes and yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Gold nanoparticles were easily activated by controlled temperature with an ultrasonic water bath and application of a pulsed laser. Conclusion: These gold nanoparticles can be synthesized with reproducibility, modified with seemingly limitless chemical functional groups, with adequate controlled optical properties for laser phototherapy of tumors and targeted drug delivery.
Financial & competing interests disclosures
The authors would like to thank to Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the financial support under the projects references PTDC/BBB-BMC/0611/2012 and UID/BIO/00645/2013. We would also like to thank the master students Catarina Filipe and João Lopes, from CBiOS/ULHT, and Arife Jiyan Baysal, from Uppsala University, for the help with cytotoxicity assays in HaCaT and in S. cerevisiae models, respectively. 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.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.