Stabilization of gold nanoparticles in organic solvents for use in drug delivery applications.

摘要

Gold nanoparticles (AuNP) are an excellent candidate for drug delivery vehicles due to their unique physical and chemical properties enabling the transport and subsequent release of payloads such as drugs or genetic materials to specific tissue sites. Their advantages include their ease of synthesis: monodisperse nanoparticles from 1 to 150 nm in size, the gold core is essentially inert and non-toxic, they can be readily functionalized by noncovalent interaction or via covalent chemical conjunction of drugs, and finally their release can be triggered via their photo-physical properties or mediated by intercellular glutathionefl, 2]. Active and passive targeting can be achieved by attaching ligands such as TNF (tumor necrosis factor), or proteins onto the nanoparticles or through size and charge effects [3, 4].