KEYWORDS: Gold, Transmission electron microscopy, Absorption, Near infrared, Biomedical optics, Absorbance, In vitro testing, Optical properties, In vivo imaging, Nanorods
Plasmon-resonant gold nanorods show great potential as an agent for contrast-enhanced biomedical imaging or
for phototherapeutics. This is primarily due to the high molar extinction coefficient at the absorption maximum and the
dependence of the wavelength of the absorption maximum on the aspect ratio, which is tunable in the near-infrared
(NIR) during synthesis. Although gold nanorods can be produced in high-yield through the seed-mediated growth
technique, the presence of residual cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), a stabilizing surfactant required for
nanorod growth, interferes with cell function and causes cytotoxicity. To overcome this potential obstacle to in vivo use,
we synthesized gold nanorods and conjugated them to a methoxy (polyethylene glycol)-thiol (mPEG (5000)-SH). This
approach yielded mPEG-SH modified gold nanorods with optical and morphometric properties that were similar to raw
(CTAB) nanorods. Both the CTAB and mPEG-SH nanorods were tested for cytotoxicity against the HL-60 human
leukemia cell line by trypan blue exclusion, and the mPEG-SH modified gold nanorods were also tested against a rat
insulinoma (RIN-38) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCCVII) cell line. Cells incubated for 24 h with the mPEG-SH
modified nanorods had little change in cell viability compared to cells incubated with vehicle alone. This was in contrast
to cytotoxicity of CTAB nanorods on HL-60 cells. These results suggest that mPEG-SH modified gold nanorods are
better suited for cell loading protocols and injection into animals and facilitate their use for imaging and phototherapeutic
purposes.
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