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Gold nanorod stabilized by thiolated chitosan as photothermal absorber for cancer cell treatment

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Abstract

Gold nanorod (GNR) has great potential in the field of cancer therapy because of its photophysical property in converting near-infrared (NIR) laser light into heat. Fabrication of GNRs by seed-mediated growth method with the aid of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) is a popular approach. However, due to high cytotoxicity of CTAB, it is necessary to modify the surface of CTAB-passivated GNRs for cell-related studies. In this study, thiolated chitosan was synthesized and harnessed to replace CTAB originally used to stabilize GNRs. The average size and morphological shape of CTAB-passivated GNRs (66.0 nm) and thiolated chitosan-modified GNRs (CGNRs) (84.9 nm) were determined by dynamic light scattering and transmission electron microscopy. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to confirm the existence of Au–S binding energy at 162.4 eV. Cytotoxicity study revealed that CGNRs were much biocompatible than CTAB-stabilized GNRs. Our results showed that CGNRs functionalized with folic acid (FA) could be internalized by human colon HT-29 cancer cells via folate-mediated endocytosis. From the viability of CGNR-laden HT-29 cells irradiated with 808-nm NIR laser light, we demonstrated that CGNR is a potential photothermal nano-absorber for the ablation of malignant cells under NIR laser exposure.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by Taiwan National Science Council grant (NSC96-2628-E-002-013-MY3) and Michigan Tech Fund of Michigan Technological University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, National Taiwan University, No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road, Taipei, 10617, Taiwan, ROC

    Chung-Hao Wang & Chia-Wei Chang

  2. Department of Chemical Engineering, Michigan Technological University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI, 49931, USA

    Ching-An Peng

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  1. Chung-Hao Wang
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  2. Chia-Wei Chang
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  3. Ching-An Peng
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Correspondence to Ching-An Peng.

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Chung-Hao Wang and Chia-Wei Chang have contributed equally to this work.

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Wang, CH., Chang, CW. & Peng, CA. Gold nanorod stabilized by thiolated chitosan as photothermal absorber for cancer cell treatment. J Nanopart Res 13, 2749–2758 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-010-0162-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-010-0162-5

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