Gold Nanoclusters as a contrast agent for image-guided surgery of head and neck tumors

Publication date: Available online 17 May 2019Source: Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and MedicineAuthor(s): Cindy Colombé, Xavier Le Guével, Angela Martin-Serrano, Maxime Henry, Estelle Porret, Clothilde Comby-Zerbino, Rodolphe Antoine, Ihab Atallah, Benoit Busser, Jean-Luc Coll, Christian Adrien Righini, Lucie SanceyAbstractWith the objective to evaluate the potential of ultra-small gold (Au) nanoclusters (NCs) for optical image-guided surgery, we synthesized and characterized AuNCs shelled by zwitterionic or pegylated ligands. The toxicity of the different AuNCs was evaluated on the Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) CAL-33 and SQ20B cell lines in vitro. The safer AuNCs were administrated intravenously to mice for the determination of the pharmacokinetic properties. Biodistributions were performed on orthotopic CAL-33 HNSCC-bearing mice. Finally, the AuNCs were used for image-guided surgery, allowing the increase of the survival time vs. control animals, and the number of animals without any local recurrence.Graphical AbstractGold nanoclusters (AuNCs) were designed and evaluated for image-guided surgery. The core of the NCs was shelled by zwitterionic (i.e. ZwEt2) or pegylated ligands (i.e. PegCOOH). Selected AuNCs were administrated to mice-bearing orthotopic Head and Neck carcinoma for image-guided surgery. They contribute to the identification of small tumor residues that were removed by surgery. Histological analysis confirmed the presence of tumor c...
Source: Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine - Category: Nanotechnology Source Type: research