Synthesizing gold nanoparticles in spherical and rod shapes for targeting cancer treatment

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles (GNP) and its relevant studies have been giving promising applications in the BioMedical area recent years such as the drug carrier in aiding drug delivery, and the multi-functional platform in cancer diagnostic and treatment due to its uniqueness in non-radiative relaxation in local heat transfer, and the strong enhanced optical properties associated with the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). However, the most native shape of the synthesized gold nanoparticles, which is spherical in shape, will give the LSPR similar to the intrinsic chromophores in human native tissues, that is ±520nm. This phenomenon has caused a disadvantage in the utilization of gold nanosphere (GNS) in some of the applications that utilized LSPR such as the plasmonic photothermal therapy (PPTT) in cancer treatment because of the interference of the human native tissues and the efficacy of such treatment will be much reduced. To solve this issue, alternative such as shifting the LSPR of the synthesized gold nanoparticles to the near infra-red (NIR) spectra, which range from 700nm to 1000nm, that is able to avoid the overlapping of the LSPR of spherical gold nanoparticles and the human tissues. To achieve this, rod shape gold nanoparticles, or gold nanorod (GNR) were synthesized. This study focused on the investigation of the synthesis methods of the GNS and GNR, together with the characterization of both synthesized gold nanoparticles via zetasizer, spectrophotometer and transmission electron microscope (TEM).