title: Anchoring Effects of Surface Chemistry on Gold Nanorods: Modulates Autophagy.
abstract: Gold nanorods (Au NRs) have been receiving extensive attention owing to their extremely attractive properties which make them suitable for various biomedical applications. Au NRs could induce nano-toxicity, but this trouble could turn into therapeutic potential through tuning the autophagy. However, the autophagy-inducing activity and mechanism of Au NRs is still unclear. Here we showed that surface chemical modification can tune the autophagy-inducing activity of Au NRs in human lung adenocarcinoma A549 cells. CTAB-coated Au NRs induce remarkable levels of autophagy activity as evidenced by LC3-II conversion and p62 degradation, while PSS- and PDDAC-coated Au NRs barely induce autophagy. More importantly, we also demonstrated that the AKT-mTOR signaling pathway was responsible for CTAB-coated Au NRs-induced autophagy. We furthermore showed that CTAB-coated Au NRs also induces autophagy in human fetal lung fibroblast MRC-5 cells in a time-dependent manner. This study unveils a previously unknown function for Au NRs in autophagy induction, and provides a new insight for designing surface modifications of Au NRs for biomedical applications.
authors: Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. No.11, First North Road, Zhongguancun, 100190 Beijing, P.R. China.|Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
authors: Shengliang
authors: S
authors: Li
authors: Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. No.11, First North Road, Zhongguancun, 100190 Beijing, P.R. China.
authors: Chunqiu
authors: C
authors: Zhang
authors: Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. No.11, First North Road, Zhongguancun, 100190 Beijing, P.R. China.
authors: Weipeng
authors: W
authors: Cao
authors: The State Key Laboratory of Biomembrane and Membrane Biotechnology, Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors: Benyu
authors: B
authors: Ma
authors: Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. No.11, First North Road, Zhongguancun, 100190 Beijing, P.R. China.
authors: Xiaowei
authors: X
authors: Ma
authors: Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. No.11, First North Road, Zhongguancun, 100190 Beijing, P.R. China.
authors: Shubin
authors: S
authors: Jin
authors: College of Chemistry & Environmental Science, Chemical Biology Key Laboratory of Hebei Province, Hebei University, Baoding, P.R. China.
authors: Jinchao
authors: J
authors: Zhang
authors: Laboratory of Molecular Imaging, Department of Radiology, Howard University, Washington, D.C. 20060, USA and Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei 24205, Taiwan.
authors: Paul C
authors: PC
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
authors: Feng
authors: F
authors: Li
authors: Chinese Academy of Sciences Key Lab for Biological Effects of Nanomaterials and Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. No.11, First North Road, Zhongguancun, 100190 Beijing, P.R. China.
authors: Xing-Jie
authors: XJ
authors: Liang