Design and synthesis of fluorescent molecules conjugated gold nanoparticles as medical diagnostic agents

Seyedeh nazanin Hendi,1 Neda attaran,2,* Azadeh asefnejad,3

1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2. Department of Medical Nanotechnology, Applied Biophotonics Research Center, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
3. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Introduction

Cancer is the second most common cause of death worldwide so identifying tumors and cancers in the early stages becomes extremely important as it has a direct effect on treating cancer. gold nanoparticles (gnps) can be considered as one of the most important nanomaterials and have been studied extensively due to their unique physical and chemical characteristics. different types of fluorescent markers have conventionally been used for imaging purposes. therefore, the combination of organic fluorophores and gold nanoparticles into a single compartment can be valuable for diagnostic and therapeutic applications

Methods

Gnps were functionalized with fluorescent molecules. the turkevich method has been used in this study to synthesize gnps due to the simplicity and ease of synthesis, controllable size, and stability of nanoparticles. to characterize these conjugated nanoparticles, the transmission electron microscopy (tem) images, uv-visible (uv-vis) absorption spectroscopic measurements, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ftir) analysis and the hydrodynamic size of the nanoparticles were specifically investigated in this study

Results

Uv-vis spectrometry was utilized to characterize the synthesized gnps. it is clear that the gnps display a characteristic surface plasmon absorption at 526 nm, showing the dispersion of gold nanoparticles. the size and morphology of the formed dispersed gnps were characterized using tem. it can be noted that the formed gnps have a spherical shape with mean diameter of ~14 nm. the hydrodynamic sizes of the gnps were measured to be 22.4 nm via dynamic light scattering (dls)

Conclusion

In this research, we designed and synthesized fluorescent molecules conjugated gold nanoparticles. an interesting result of this study showed that the designed conjugated gold nanoparticle can provide an efficient agent for medical diagnostic applications

Keywords

Fluorescent molecules, gold nanoparticles, medical applications