Pharmacological Role of Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles in Disease Applications

Abstract

Gold has always been regarded as a symbol of nobility, and its shiny golden appearance has always attracted the attention of many people. Gold has good ductility, molecular recognition properties, and good biocompatibility. At present, gold is being used in many fields. When gold particles are as small as several nanometers, their physical and chemical properties vary with their size in nanometers. The surface area of a nano-sized gold surface has a special effect. Therefore, gold nanoparticles can, directly and indirectly, give rise to different biological activities. For example, if the surface of the gold is sulfided. Various substances have a strong chemical reactivity and are easy to combine with sulfhydryl groups; hence, nanogold is often used in biomedical testing, disease diagnosis, and gene detection. Nanogold is easy to bind to proteins, such as antibodies, enzymes, or cytokines. In fact, scientists use nanogold to bind special antibodies, as a tool for targeting cancer cells. Gold nanoparticles are also directly cytotoxic to cancer cells. For diseases caused by inflammation and oxidative damage, gold nanoparticles also have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Based on these unique properties, gold nanoparticles have become the most widely studied metal nanomaterials. Many recent studies have further demonstrated that gold nanoparticles are beneficial for humans, due to their functional pharmacological properties in a variety of diseases. The content of this review will be the application of gold nanoparticles in treating or diagnosing pressing diseases, such as cancers, retinopathy, neurological diseases, skin disorders, bowel diseases, bone cartilage disorders, cardiovascular diseases, infections, and metabolic syndrome. Gold nanoparticles have shown very obvious therapeutic and application potential.

Nano-Hybrid Au@LCCs Systems Displaying Anti-Inflammatory Activity

“…Moreover, the Au@LCCs 2.6:1 showed a significantly higher anti-inflammatory activity than the 1:1 dispersion ( Figure 10 ). Although not well characterized and understood at the cellular and molecular level, the biological activity of Au NPs has been reported by several authors [ 74 ], conversely, there is no evidence of potential bioproperties of inorganic graphene-derived LCCs [ 75 ]. So the observed anti-inflammatory effects need to be ascribed to Au NPs contained in the hybrid Au@LCC colloid.…”

Functionalized Silver and Gold Nanomaterials with Diagnostic and Therapeutic Applications

“…Thus, finding the possible reactions of cells with Au NPs is necessary. Future courses ought to combine both in vivo and in vitro assays in a long-term study to culminate in standardized procedures such as appropriate cell type, improved Au NP dose, and cytotoxicity assays [ 91 ]. In one study, Au NPs were functionalized with polyethyleneimine and polyethylene glycol to evaluate their neuronal toxicity and the cellular/sub-organ biodistribution.…”

Nanocarriers: A novel strategy for the delivery of CRISPR/Cas systems

“…Gold is among the most commonly used metals in biomedicine as a result of its anti-inflammatory and antibiotic properties ( Ko et al, 2022 ). In recent years, various applications of gold nanoparticles as vectors in therapeutic strategies have been investigated ( Trigueros et al, 2019 ; He et al, 2021 ; Jahangiri-Manesh et al, 2022 ).…”