A reexamination of active and passive tumor targeting by using rod-shaped gold nanocrystals and covalently conjugated peptide ligands.

ABSTRACT: The targeted delivery of nanoparticles to solid tumors is one of the most important and challenging problems in cancer nanomedicine, but the detailed delivery mechanisms and design principles are still not well understood. Here we report quantitative tumor uptake studies for a class of elongated gold nanocrystals (called nanorods) that are covalently conjugated to tumor-targeting peptides. A major advantage in using gold as a "tracer" is that the accumulated gold in tumors and other organs can be quantitatively determined by elemental mass spectrometry (gold is not a natural element found in animals). Thus, colloidal gold nanorods are stabilized with a layer of polyethylene glycols (PEGs) and are conjugated to three different ligands: (i) a single-chain variable fragment (ScFv) peptide tha

SUBMITTER: Huang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2964428 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature