Synthesis of novel galactose functionalized gold nanoparticles and its radiosensitizing mechanism

• DOI: 10.1186/s12951-015-0129-x
• Publication Date: 2015-10-09T09:43:06Z
• Authors: Chuan-dong Zhu; Qin Zheng; Li-xue Wang; Han-Feng Xu; Jin-long Tong; Quan-an Zhang; Yuan Wan; Jian-qing Wu
• Keywords: Carcinoma, Hepatocellular; Research; Liver Neoplasms; Biomedical Engineering; Medicine (miscellaneous); Pharmaceutical Science; Galactose; Metal Nanoparticles; Bioengineering; Asialoglycoprotein Receptor; Hep G2 Cells; Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology; Polyethylene Glycols; 3. Good health; Oxidative Stress; 03 medical and health sciences; Drug Delivery Systems; 0302 clinical medicine; Molecular Medicine; Humans; Gold; Particle Size

Biocompatible gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are potentially practical and efficient agents in cancer radiotherapy applications. In this study, we demonstrated that GNPs can significantly modulate irradiation response of hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro and investigated the underlying mechanisms. We co-grafted galactose (GAL) targeting hepatocyte specific asialoglycoprotein receptor and Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) onto GNPs surfaces to increase GNPs targeting specificity and stability.This novel GAL-PEG-GNPs and bare GNPs show similar appearance and cytotoxicity profiles, while more GAL-PEG-GNPs can be effectively uptaken and could enhance cancer cell killing.GAL-PEG-GNPs have better radiosensitization to HepG2. The sensitization mechanism of GAL-PEG-GNPs is related to the apoptotic gene process activated by generation of a large amount of free radicals induced by GNPs.