Hybrid plasmonic materials based on gold nanobones and bovine serum albumin for application in pharmacology and medicine

Abstract

Bovine serum albumin (BSA) is widely used for coating various types of nanoparticles to provide them bioinertness. At the same time, BSA is an excellent surface stabilizer which prevents coagulation of nanoparticles, and it is also able to mask the nanoobjects from the human immune system at in vivo applications because its structure is 70% identical to human albumin.
Cross-linking of individual BSA molecules to each other with glutaraldehyde (a homobifunctional covalent linker of amino groups) can provide the better stabilization of nanoparticles together with the denser and thicker shell.
In this study, bovine serum albumin was used to obtain the shells of anisotropic bone-shaped gold nanoparticles, as well as hydrogels with plasmonic properties. The choice of anisotropic gold nanoparticles was made to opportunity of the application of resulting nanohybrid systems in the near-infrared region of biological tissues transparency.
As a result, on the one hand, using bovine serum albumin together with gold nanoparticles allowed obtaining the colloids with increased stability and nanoparticle shell of required thickness and variable optical parameters, on the other hand, it also made possible a preparation of homogeneous hydrogels with plasmonic properties. The resulting nanohybrids show promise for further optical research and biological applications.

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Speaker

Aleksei Smirnov
Saint Petersburg State University
Russia

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