Environmentally compatible bioconjugated gold nanoparticles as efficient contrast agents for colorectal cancer cell imaging

• Autor(a) principal: Araújo, Aurigena Antunes de
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Outros Autores: Lima, Kássio M.G., Araújo Junior, Raimundo F., Oliveira, Ana Luiza C.S. Leitão, Gasparotto, Luiz H.S.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRN
• Texto Completo: https://repositorio.ufrn.br/jspui/handle/123456789/25423; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2014.02.008
• topic: Green synthesis; Gold nanoparticles; Colorectal cancer; Bioconjugation; Confocal microscopy; Cell imaging

In this study we show, for the first time, that gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) synthesized by a simple, inexpensive, and environmentally-correct method can be easily conjugated with the antibodies anti-β-catenin and anti-E-cadherin to specifically target colorectal carcinoma cells. The antibody/AuNPs conjugates were then successfully applied for imaging cancerous cells with fluorescence confocal microscopy. The AuNPs as well as the conjugates were very stable in high-salinity medium, a pre-requisite for application in physiological-like environments. Fluorescence results suggest that conjugation was achieved by direct adsorption of antibodies on the AuNPs surface. Finally, compared with a standard method of cell staining, our method is less laborious and the preparation time (from immobilization of cells onto glass cover slips until observation by confocal microscopy) decreased from 27 h to about 1 h, which makes the method eligible for colorectal cancer diagnostic.