Gold Nanoprobes for Theranostics

Balaji Panchapakesan; Brittany Book-Newell; Palaniappan Sethu; Madhusudhana Rao; Joseph Irudayaraj

Nanomedicine. 2011;6(10):1787-1811.

What Are Gold Nanoprobes?

Gold nanoprobes (GNPs) are nanometer scale particles made of gold in varying shapes and sizes. Typical nanoprobes take the form of spheres, rods, shells, stars, cages, crescents, boxes and prisms with sizes ranging from 2 to 500 nm. Most probes used in biomedical and life sciences applications lie in the range between 10 and 100 nm. Nanoprobes have been shown to function as effective contrast agents for imaging and photothermal therapy, and as drug delivery vehicles for targeted therapeutics. The ease of fabrication, chemical stability, multifunctionality and biocompatibility makes GNPs highly attractive for diagnostics and therapy.

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Table 1. Gold nanoprobes: optical properties and applications.
Gold nanoprobes	Optical property	Application
Nanospheres	C_abs = 2.93 × 10^–15 (m²), at λ_max =528 nm, for 40 nm particle diameter C_sca =1.23 × 10^–14 (m²) at 560 nm, for 80 nm particle diameter [51]	Contrast agents in OCT, photothermal heating, cellular uptake
Nanoshells	C_abs = 5 × 10^–14 (m²) and C_sca =3.25 × 10^–14 (m²) at λ_max =892 nm, for 140 nm particle diameter [52]	Contrast agents in OCT, photothermal heating, TPS and cellular uptake
Nanorods	C_abs = 1.97 × 10^–14 (m²) and C_sca = 1.07 × 10^–14 (m²) at λ_max =842 nm, for effective radius = 21.86 nm and aspect ratio R = 3.9 [51]	Contrast agents in OCT, photothermal heating, TPS and cellular uptake
Nanocages	C_abs = 7.3 × 10^–15 (m²), C_sca =0.8 × 10^–15 (m²) at λ_max =825 nm, for 36 nm particle [42]	Contrast agents in OCT, photothermal heating, TPS, cellular uptake
Nanostars	SERS enhancement factor of 5 × 10³ averaged over the 52 nm nanostars for 633 nm excitation [38]	SERS, plasmonic transducers for biosensing
Conventional NIR indocyanine green	C_abs =1.66 × 10^–20 (m²) at λ_max =778 nm, ε = 1.08 × 10⁴ M^–1cm^–1 at 778 nm [51]	Conventional organic dyes used in imaging
Rhodamine 6G	ε = 1.16 × 10⁵ M^–1cm^–1 at 530 nm [51]	Conventional strongly absorbing organic dye used in imaging

C_abs: Absorption cross section; C_sca: Scattering cross section; ε: Molar extinction coefficient; NIR: Near infrared; OCT: Optical coherence tomography; SERS: Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy; TPS:Two-photon scattering.

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Gold Nanoprobes for Theranostics

What Are Gold Nanoprobes?

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