Interaction of amphiphilic gold nanoparticles with lipid membranes and their application to cancer radiotherapy

Abstract

Striped gold nanoparticles (NPs), inorganic particles protected by an amphiphilic mixed organic ligand shell, are the most recent and potent evolution of gold nanoparticle intracellular delivery vectors. Here we propose the combination of striped gold nanoparticles with lipid vesicles of diameter < 200 nm in order to concentrate their delivery and couple their delivery to the delivery of pharmaceuticals. Mechanisms of penetration of striped gold nanoparticles into live cell membranes via non-endocytic pathways was poorly understood, therefore this work focuses on the interaction of striped NPs with synthetic lipid membranes as models for cellular membranes, and interactions with bacterial membranes have been investigated to provide a more stringent test of their interaction capacity. Cellular uptake of striped gold nanoparticles has been observed to be homogeneous when delivered via interbilayer crosslinked multilamellar lipid vesicles, which resulted in enhancement of striped gold nanoparticle induced radiosensitization causing membrane rupture and genomic damage.