Gold Nanocages: From Synthesis to Theranostic Applications

By Younan Xia, Weiyang Li, C. Cobley, Jingyi Chen, Xiaohu Xia, Qiang Zhang, Miaoxin Yang, E. Cho, Paige K Brown. Accounts of Chemical Research, 2011

768 citations recorded by the source corpus.

CONSPECTUS Gold nanostructures have garnered considerable attention in recent years for their potential to enhance both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer through their advantageous chemical and physical properties. The key feature of Au nanostructures for enabling this diverse array of biomedical applications is their attractive optical properties, i.e. the scattering and absorption of light at resonant wavelengths due to the excitation of plasmon oscillations. This phenomenon is commonly known as localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and is the source of the ruby red color of conventional Au colloids. The resonant wavelength is highly dependent on the size, shape, and geometry of the nanostructures, providing a set of knobs to maneuver the optical properties as needed. For in vivo applications, especially when optical excitation or transduction is involved, the LSPR peaks of the Au nanostructures have to be tuned to the transparent window of soft tissues in the near-infrared (NIR) region (from 700–900 nm) in order to maximize the penetration depth. One class of nanostructures with tunable LSPR peaks in the NIR region is Au nanocages. These versatile nanostructures are characterized by hollow interiors, ultrathin and porous walls, and can be prepared in relatively large quantities using a remarkably simple procedure based on the galvanic replacement between Ag nanocubes and aqueous chloroauric acid. The LSPR peaks of Au nanocages can be readily and precisely tuned to any wavelength in the NIR region by controlling their size and/or wall thickness. Other significant features of Au nanocages that make them particularly intriguing materials for biomedical applications include their compact sizes, large absorption cross sections (almost five orders of magnitude greater than those of conventional organic dyes), bio-inertness, as well as a robust and straightforward procedure for surface modification based on the Au-thiolate chemistry. In this article, we present some of the most recent advances in the use of Au nanocages for a broad range of theranostic applications, including their use: i) as tracers for tracking by multi-photon luminescence; ii) as contrast agents for photoacoustic (PA) and mutimodal (PA/fluorescence) imaging; iii) as photothermal agents for the selective destruction of cancerous or diseased tissue; and iv) as drug delivery vehicles for controlled and localized release in response to external stimuli such as NIR radiation or high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU).

Subfields: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5aa500d004d409808aaa476b243f76f35e87414c

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Citations in the corpus

Gold nanostars: surfactant-free synthesis, 3D modelling, and two-photon photoluminescence imaging (2012, methodology): “Particularly, the plasmons of nanoshells, nanorods, nanocages, nanostars, and hollow nanospheres can be tuned to the near-infrared (NIR) region [5–10], which is advantageous for in vivo application due to superior tissue penetration at that spectral range [11, 12].”
Electrochemical biosensing based on noble metal nanoparticles (2012, background): “nanocages [182], nanowires [183], nanorods [184], nanocubes [185], nanoflowers [186], nanotrees [187] and nanoprisms [188] possess exceeding optical, electronic and”