Synthesis, Characterization and Biological Studies of the Phospholipid Coated Gold Nanoparticles (GNPs)

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have been applied as diagnostic and therapeutic agents because they can be targeted, localized, and be heated to cause cell death. However, their use has been limited by their relatively low biocompatibility. In this work, we coated the GNPs surface by a biocompatible phospholipid bilayer composed of 1-stearoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phospho-(1'-rac-glycerol) (SOPG). In order to use the fluorescence, a small amount of the NBD labeled PG (NBD-PG) was introduced to the phospholipid bilayer. We synthesized and characterized the NBD labeled SOPG coated GNPs (NBD-SOPG-GNPs) and gold nanorods with different size and shape. We tested the interaction of 30 nm NBD-SOPG-GNPs with three different cell lines (A549, C2C12 and C2bbe1) to investigate their uptake and intracellular fate as well as the response of the cells to the presence of the NBD-SOPG-GNPs. Our results demonstrated that NBD-SOPG-GNPs has different uptake destinations in three cell lines.