Impact of photothermal therapy using glucose-functionalized gold nanoparticles in human lung cancer cells

JUAN BRAGA MENENDEZ; MARIA FERNANDA CARDINAL; MARIANA MALVICINI

Congreso; Reunion Anual de Biociencias 2021; 2021

SAI-SAFIS-SAIC-NANOMED

Despite the recent data on cancer incidence showing that molecular targeted treatments have accelerated a progress against lung cancer, it remains the principal cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Additionally, most patients are diagnosed in advanced stages, restricting their therapeutic options. Nanoparticles-based photothermal therapy has been studied as a low toxic and feasible treatment for solid tumors in the recent years. In this work, we synthetized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) in the forms of rods, spheres and stars and analyzed the in vitro toxicity of AuNPs, polyethylene glycol-(PEG-AuNPs) and glucose-functionalized AuNPs (GlucAuNPs) on human lung carcinoma cells. Also, we evaluated the ability of cancer cells to uptake each type of GlucAuNPs and assessed the capability of irradiated N-GlucAuNPs to induce thermal damage. From our results, we detected that AuNPs toxicity significantly decreases when they were functionalized with PEG, in comparison with as prepared AuNPs (p