Anchoring Effects of Surface Chemistry on Gold Nanorods: Modulates Autophagy.

ABSTRACT: Gold nanorods (Au NRs) have been receiving extensive attention owing to their extremely attractive properties which make them suitable for various biomedical applications. Au NRs could induce nano-toxicity, but this trouble could turn into therapeutic potential through tuning the autophagy. However, the autophagy-inducing activity and mechanism of Au NRs is still unclear. Here we showed that surface chemical modification can tune the autophagy-inducing activity of Au NRs in human lung adenocarcinoma A549 cells. CTAB-coated Au NRs induce remarkable levels of autophagy activity as evidenced by LC3-II conversion and p62 degradation, while PSS- and PDDAC-coated Au NRs barely induce autophagy. More importantly, we also demonstrated that the AKT-mTOR signaling pathway was responsible for CTAB-co

SUBMITTER: Li S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4539969 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature