Yasun Emir, Li Chunmei, Barut Inci, Janvier Denisse, Qiu Liping, Cui Cheng, Tan Weihong
Department of Chemistry and Department of Physiology and Functional Genomics Shands Cancer Center and Center for Research at the Interface of Bio/nano UF Genetics Institute and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-7200, USA.
Nanoscale. 2015 Jun 14;7(22):10240-8. doi: 10.1039/c5nr01704a. Epub 2015 May 20.
Aptamer-conjugated gold nanorods (AuNRs) are excellent candidates for targeted hyperthermia therapy of cancer cells. However, in high concentrations of AuNRs, aptamer conjugation alone fails to result in highly cell-specific AuNRs due to the presence of positively charged cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as a templating surfactant. Besides causing nonspecific electrostatic interactions with the cell surfaces, CTAB can also be cytotoxic, leading to uncontrolled cell death. To avoid the nonspecific interactions and cytotoxicity triggered by CTAB, we report the further biologically inspired modification of aptamer-conjugated AuNRs with bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein. Following this modification, interaction between CTAB and the cell surface was efficiently blocked, thereby dramatically reducing the side effects of CTAB. This approach may provide a general and simple method to avoid one of the most serious issues in biomedical applications of nanomaterials: nonspecific binding of the nanomaterials with biological cells.
适配体偶联的金纳米棒（AuNRs）是癌细胞靶向热疗的理想候选物。然而，在高浓度的AuNRs中，由于存在带正电荷的十六烷基三甲基溴化铵（CTAB）作为模板表面活性剂，仅适配体偶联无法产生高度细胞特异性的AuNRs。除了与细胞表面引起非特异性静电相互作用外，CTAB还可能具有细胞毒性，导致细胞不受控制地死亡。为了避免CTAB引发的非特异性相互作用和细胞毒性，我们报道了用牛血清白蛋白（BSA）蛋白对适配体偶联的AuNRs进行进一步的生物启发修饰。经过这种修饰，CTAB与细胞表面之间的相互作用被有效阻断，从而显著降低了CTAB的副作用。这种方法可能提供一种通用且简单的方法，以避免纳米材料生物医学应用中最严重的问题之一：纳米材料与生物细胞的非特异性结合。
