Photothermal therapy of cancer cells enhanced by glutathione (GSH) modified small-sized gold nanoparticles

ABSTRACT

Small-sized gold nanoparticles (∼3nm) coated with Glutathione (GSH) ligand have designed as an active agent in photothermal therapy (PTT). GSH is pH-sensitive surface that have a fast response property to the variation in pH conditions, especially between normal (∼7.4) and cancer cell (6–6.5), that help the evaluation of the target and toxic effect of the cancer rather than normal cells. Results revealed considerable toxic effects of GSH-AuNPs accumulation in cancer cells for both green and NIR laser irradiation. The GSH-AuNPs represent promising agents for developing the safety issues of photothermal cancer treatment by; the selective targeting of the cancer rather than normal cells, reducing the NPs toxicity by their size overlapping with the renal clearance barrier of kidney filtration (~5.5 nm), and promoting the photothermal performance in the NIR region, in which light penetration into deep cancer regions are more interested.

KEYWORDS:

• Photothermal therapy
• GSH
• laser
• small-sized gold nanoparticles

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).