Design of Eco-Friendly Gold Nanoparticles for Cancer Treatment.

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have emerged as a potential scaffold for a wide range of biomedical applications such as biosensing, drug delivery, and imaging. However, the toxicity of nanoparticles remains a challenge for using them in biological system. The morphology and surface chemistry of GNP can be manipulated by their method of preparation. GNP can be synthesized and functionalized by various methods. This chapter illustrates the synthesis of highly biocompatible GNP using a natural gum, i.e., xanthan gum (XG). Moreover, due to the presence of mannose moiety in XG, these XG-stabilized GNP may also act as self-targeted drug carriers for the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents/siRNA/shRNA to mannose receptor overexpressing cancer cells.