Gold Nanoparticle-Induced Cell Death and Potential Applications in Nanomedicine

Abstract

Cell death is crucial to human health and is related to various serious diseases. Therefore, generation of new cell death regulators is urgently needed for disease treatment. Nanoparticles (NPs) are now routinely used in a variety of fields, including consumer products and medicine. Exhibiting stability and ease of decoration, gold nanoparticles (GNPs) could be used in diagnosis and disease treatment. Upon entering the human body, GNPs contact human cells in the blood, targeting organs and the immune system. This property results in the disturbance of cell function and even cell death. Therefore, GNPs may act as powerful cell death regulators. However, at present, we are far from establishing a structure–activity relationship between the physicochemical properties of GNPs and cell death, and predicting GNP-induced cell death. In this review, GNPs’ size, shape, and surface properties are observed to play key roles in regulating various cell death modalities and related signaling pathways. These results could guide the design of GNPs for nanomedicine.

Extra-Small Gold Nanospheres Decorated With a Thiol Functionalized Biodegradable and Biocompatible Linear Polyamidoamine as Nanovectors of Anticancer Molecules

“…Green synthesized of AuNPs (10 -42 nm) can induce the apoptosis activating the caspase-3 and 9 in human cervical cancer cells (Baharara et al, 2016) and the citrate-coated AuNPs (8 nm) promoted apoptosis eliciting BAX translocation and cytochrome c release in human liver (HL7702) cells (Gao et al, 2011). In agreement with literature findings (Sun et al, 2018;Vemuri et al, 2019), Au@PT cytotoxic effects elicited significant changes in survival and proliferation (AKT/PI3K and ERK pathways, respectively) as well as apoptotic process (pro-apoptotic BAX, anti-apoptotic BCL-xL, respectively) (Figure 5B). AKT and ERK activation levels were significantly reduced in the treatment with 2.5Au@PT and 5Au@PT than with control (Figures 5Ba-c), with a slight decrease after the incubation with 5Au@PT.…”

“…The strategy of combining the properties of AuNPs with anticancer molecules could be the future of cancer nanomedicine (Sun et al, 2018). Chattopadhyay et al (2010) showed that Trastuzumab-PEG-AuNPs (30 nm) in combination with 300 kVp X-rays enhanced DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) in SKBR-3 cells.…”

“…Saporin-loaded nanobody-targeted polymeric nanoparticles induced HER2 clustering, and promoting its internalization causes an efficient NPs receptor-mediated endocytosis with subsequent intracellular delivery of its cytotoxic cargo (saporin) (Martínez-Jothar et al, 2019). As regard AuNPs, Trastuzumabfunctionalized AuNPs mostly underwent endocytosis in breast cancer cells largely through a receptor-facilitated mechanism (Chattopadhyay et al, 2010;Han et al, 2014;Rathinaraj et al, 2015;Sun et al, 2018). Han et al (2014) found that quantum dots-HER bound specifically to SKBR-3 membrane, inducing their internalization via a receptor-mediated mechanism.…”

The Inhibitory Effects of Gold Nanoparticles on VEGF-A-Induced Cell Migration in Choroid-Retina Endothelial Cells

“…Many studies showed that AuNPs do not affect cell viabilities in several cell types [37], but some studies demonstrated their toxic effects [38,39]. The effect of AuNPs on choroid-retina endothelial cell viability is still unknown.…”

Cytotoxicity and Cellular Responses of Gold Nanorods to Smooth Muscle Cells Dependent on Surface Chemistry Coupled Action

“…Gold nanorods (AuNRs) have unique physicochemical properties, and are increasingly being recognized as promising materials for biomedical applications, including photothermal therapy, gene/drug delivery, imaging, and diagnostics . It has therefore become important to study the biological effects of AuNRs in order to understand both their potential risks as well as their beneficial properties . The shape, size, and surface chemistry characteristics of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) play important roles in mediating their physiological activities .…”