title: L-Leucine for gold nanoparticles synthesis and their cytotoxic effects evaluation.
abstract: This work reports the preparation of water-soluble leucine capped gold nanoparticles by two single-step synthesis methods. The first procedure involves a citrate reduction approach where the citrate is used as reducing agent and leucine as capping/stabilizing agent. Different sizes of gold nanoparticles, citrate reduced and stabilized by leucine, Leu-AuNPs-C, with the mean diameters in the range of 21-56 nm, were obtained by varying the macroscopic parameters such as: concentration of the gold precursor solution, Au (III):citrate molar ratio and leucine pH. In the second procedure, leucine acts both as reducing and stabilizing agent, allowing us to obtain spherical gold nanoparticles, Leu-AuNPs, with a majority of 80 % (with the mean diameter of 63 nm). This proves that leucine is an appropriate reductant for the formation of water-soluble and stable gold nanoparticles colloids. The characterization of the leucine coated gold nanoparticles was carried out by TEM, UV-Vis and FT-IR analysis. The cytotoxic effect of Leu-AuNPs-C and Leu-AuNPs was also evaluated.
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, 67-103 Donat Street, 400293, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, camelia.grosan@itim-cj.ro.
authors.forename: Camelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Berghian-Grosan
authors.forename: Liliana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Olenic
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Katona
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Perde-Schrepler
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vulcu
mesh_terms: D016880:Anisotropy; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002470:Cell Survival; D015195:Drug Design; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D007930:Leucine / Q000737:chemistry*; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods; D010316:Particle Size; D013053:Spectrophotometry; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; D017550:Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared
chemical_list: D006046:Gold; D007930:Leucine