Abstract:

BACKGROUND: The added cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide molecules in the process of the preparation of gold nanorods can promote the formation of rodlike gold nanoparticles, and ensure the dispersion of gold nanorods. However, it can also have certain toxicity.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the biocompatibility of surface modified gold nanorods.
METHODS: Gold nanorods were synthesized by the method of seed-mediated growth and coated with silica by a modified Stober method. The physical properties including shapes, disperbility and absorption peaks of the silica-coated gold nanorods were characterized by transmission electron microscopy and UV-vis spectrometer respectively. The coated gold nanorods were prepared in solution at different concentrations (60, 45, 30, 15 μmol/L) and then were incubated by liver cancer bel-7402 cell line or stomach cancer MGC-803 cell line. After that, cell proliferation and cytotoxicity grading were detected by the cell counting kit-8 method.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The silica-coated gold nanorods had a good dispersivity; its optical properties had not changed, and conserved absorption peaks at 500 nm and 825 nm, respectively. After co-cultured with the gold nanorods, the relative growth rate of liver cancer bel-7402 cell line was between 95% and 100%, while that of stomach cancer MGC-803 cell line was between 99% and 103%. The toxicity grading of the two kinds of cells was level 0 or 1, respectively. In addition, they had no cytotoxicity. These results suggest that the gold nanorods coated with silica have good biocompatibility.