title: Inherently stealthy and highly tumor-selective gold nanoraspberries for photothermal cancer therapy.
abstract: Owing to their unique optical properties such as large absorption and scattering cross section and large enhancement of electromagnetic field at the surface, plasmonic nanostructures have received extensive attention as a highly promising class of materials for nano-oncology. Most of the existing plasmonic nanostructures require extensive post-synthesis treatments and biofunctionalization routines to mitigate their cytotoxicity and/or make them tumor-specific. Here, we report one-pot synthesis of a novel class of plasmonic nanostructures, namely, gold nanoraspberries (GRBs) with tunable size and localized surface plasmon resonance by using a naturally abundant polysaccharide, chitosan, which acts as a template and capping agent. Significantly, the GRBs, which do not require any further biofunctionalization, exhibit excellent selectivity to tumor cells, thus enabling locoregional therapy at the cellular level. We demonstrate the tumor-selectivity of GRBs by photothermal ablation of tumor cells selectively from their co-culture with normal cells. The simple, scalable and tumor-selective nature of GRBs makes them excellent candidates for translational plasmonics-based nanomedicine.
authors.affiliation: 1] Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, 1 Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130 [2] Duke University, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry and the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, 101 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708.
authors.forename: Naveen
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gandra
authors.affiliation: Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, 1 Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130.
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Portz
authors.affiliation: Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, 1 Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130.
authors.forename: Saide Z
authors.initials: SZ
authors.lastname: Nergiz
authors.affiliation: Duke University, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry and the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, 101 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fales
authors.affiliation: Duke University, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry and the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics, 101 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708.
authors.forename: Tuan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vo-Dinh
authors.affiliation: Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, 1 Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO 63130.
authors.forename: Srikanth
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Singamaneni
mesh_terms: D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy*; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D048271:Chitosan / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018920:Coculture Techniques; D004337:Drug Carriers; D005260:Female; D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry; D006801:Humans; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D010789:Phototherapy / Q000379:methods; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance
chemical_list: D004337:Drug Carriers; D006046:Gold; D048271:Chitosan