title: Preparation and Photoacoustic Analysis of Cellular Vehicles Containing Gold Nanorods.
abstract: Gold nanorods are attractive for a range of biomedical applications, such as the photothermal ablation and the photoacoustic imaging of cancer, thanks to their intense optical absorbance in the near-infrared window, low cytotoxicity and potential to home into tumors. However, their delivery to tumors still remains an issue. An innovative approach consists of the exploitation of the tropism of tumor-associated macrophages that may be loaded with gold nanorods in vitro. Here, we describe the preparation and the photoacoustic inspection of cellular vehicles containing gold nanorods. PEGylated gold nanorods are modified with quaternary ammonium compounds, in order to achieve a cationic profile. On contact with murine macrophages in ordinary Petri dishes, these particles are found to undergo massive uptake into endocytic vesicles. Then these cells are embedded in biopolymeric hydrogels, which are used to verify that the stability of photoacoustic conversion of the particles is retained in their inclusion into cellular vehicles. We are confident that these results may provide new inspiration for the development of novel strategies to deliver plasmonic particles to tumors.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Italian National Research Council.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cavigli
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Italian National Research Council.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Tatini
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences, University of Florence, Firenze.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Borri
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Italian National Research Council; f.ratto@ifac.cnr.it.
authors.forename: Fulvio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ratto
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Italian National Research Council.
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Centi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence, Sesto Fiorentino.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cini
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, University of Bologna.
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lelli
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Italian National Research Council.
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Matteini
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Italian National Research Council.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pini
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006046:Gold; D006801:Humans; D051379:Mice; D043942:Nanotubes
chemical_list: D006046:Gold