Ultra-Small Gold Nanoparticles with Mild Immunomodulatory Activity as a Potential Tool for Bio-Applications

Bělinová, T.; Javorová, P.; Nguyenová, H. Y.; Řezníčková, A.; Humlová, Z.; Hubálek Kalbáčová, Marie

doi:10.14712/fb2022068040142

Folia Biologica > Archive > 2022, Vol. 68 > Issue 4 > Ultra-Small Gold Nanoparticles with Mild…

Fol. Biol. 2022, 68, 142-152

https://doi.org/10.14712/fb2022068040142

Ultra-Small Gold Nanoparticles with Mild Immunomodulatory Activity as a Potential Tool for Bio-Applications

T. Bělinová¹, P. Javorová², H. Y. Nguyenová³, A. Řezníčková³, Z. Humlová^2,4, Marie Hubálek Kalbáčová²

¹Biomedical Centre, Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University, Czech Republic
²Institute of Pathological Physiology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Czech Republic
³Department of Solid State Engineering, University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, Czech Republic
⁴Institute of Immunology and Microbiology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and General University Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic

Received July 2022
Accepted December 2022

Recently, more and more efforts are directed towards developing new imaging and drug-delivery options based on various nanoparticles, exploiting their unique properties. Here, ultra-small gold nanoparticles functionalized with widely used polyethylene glycol and its amine-terminated form were tested in respect of their potential interactions with human immune cells (cell line and primary cells). The results showed that differently terminated ultra-small gold nanoparticles represent an interesting theranostic platform as they are harmless to immune cells (not inducing cytotoxicity and severe immune response) and on the other hand, they can serve as imaging and/or drug delivery agents using e.g. monocytes/macrophages as “Trojan horses” to deliver these nanoparticles across the blood-brain barrier and diagnose or treat pathologies of the central nervous system.

Keywords

gold nanoparticles, immune cells, immunomodulation, nanoparticle-cell interaction.

Funding

The study was supported by Cooperatio Program, research area Medical Diagnostics and Basic Medical Sciences (MHK, ZH) and SVV 260 511 (PJ) (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic), Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic – project NU20‐08‐00208 (HYN, AR). We acknowledge the Electron Microscopy Core Facility, IMG CAS, Prague, CR, supported by MEYS CR (LM2018129, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18_046/0016045, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001775).