Fungus-mediated biological synthesis of gold nanoparticles: potential in detection of liver cancer

Abstract

Background: Nanomaterials are considered to be the pre-eminent component of the rapidly advancing field of nanotechnology. However, developments in the biologically inspired synthesis of nanoparticles are still in their infancy and consequently attracting the attention of material scientists throughout the world. Keeping in mind the fact that microorganism-assisted synthesis of nanoparticles is a safe and economically viable prospect, in the current study we report Candida albicans-mediated biological synthesis of gold nanoparticles. Methods and results: Transmission electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and various spectrophotometric analyses were performed to characterize the gold nanoparticles. The morphology of the synthesized gold particles depended on the abundance of C. albicans cytosolic extract. Transmission electron microscopy, nanophox particle analysis, and atomic force microscopy revealed the size of spherical gold nanoparticles to be in the range of 20-40 nm and nonspherical gold particles were found to be 60-80 nm. We also evaluated the potential of biogenic gold nanoparticles to probe liver cancer cells by conjugating them with liver cancer cell surface-specific antibodies. The antibody-conjugated gold particles were found to bind specifically to the surface antigens of the cancer cells. Conclusion:The antibody-conjugated gold particles synthesized in this study could successfully differentiate normal cell populations from cancerous cells.

Fungal biosynthesis of gold nanoparticles: mechanism and scale up

“…The fungal pathogen Candida albicans is capable of synthesizing phytochelatins, which are made of chain links of glucose, cysteine and glycine ((c-Glu-Cys) n-Gly) by the transpeptidation reaction of c-Glu-Cys dipeptide from a succession of glutathione molecules. In the presence of glutathione, metal ions, including Au, trigger phytochelatin synthesis, in which Au 3+ ions get reduced to AuNPs, which are then capped by glutathione (Chauhan et al ., 2011 ).…”

Microbial mediated preparation, characterization and optimization of gold nanoparticles

“…Recently, this author reported biological extracellular synthesis of copper oxide, silver and gold nanoparticles by using different Penicillium species and Enterobacteriacea family with fairly well-defined dimensions and good monodispersity ( Honary et al , 2012a , 2012b , 2013a , 2013b ). Biosynthesis of Metallic nanoparticles is very important due to their potential applications in catalysis, photonics, biomedicine and optics ( Chauhan et al , 2011 ). Among all metallic nanoparticles, gold has a long history of use.…”

Immunotherapy for Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcomas

“…Novel microparticle-based drug delivery systems, such as microemulsion, nanoemulsion, nanoparticles, liposomes, and others, can load many kinds of various drugs and improve the drug delivery to target sites [ 118 – 121 ]. It has been reported that these systems improve the efficacy of vaccine and reduce adverse effects of cytokines [ 122 – 124 ]. Tuftsin, a tetrapeptide (Thr-Lys-Pro-Arg) fraction of immunoglobulin G molecule, binds to neutrophils and macrophages [ 125 – 127 ].…”