Aim: A novel methodology is provided to quantitatively measure the gold (Au) mass internalized in a cell for effective implementation of plasmonic photothermal therapy (PPTT).
Materials & methods: The cellular uptake of 4-mercaptobenzoic acid-labeled Au nanoparticles (NPs) is investigated via Raman mapping and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and the efficiency of in vitro PPTT is evaluated.
Results & conclusion: The cellular uptake is strongly affected by the size of the Au NPs, concentration of the Au NPs, incubation time and cell type. By optimizing the experimental parameters, the results show that a significant damage is caused to the HepG2 cells and slight harm is caused to the HL-7702 cells during PPTT. This demonstrates a high potential for developing effective photothermal therapy for tumor tissues.
Keywords: ICP-MS; Raman mapping; cellular uptake; cytotoxicity; gold nanoparticles; human hepatic immortalized cell lines (HL-7702); human hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines (HepG2); plasmonic photothermal therapy; surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).