Bovine serum albumin conjugated gold-198 nanoparticles as model to evaluate the damage caused by ionizing radiation to biomolecules

Abstract

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have several applications including in medicine. Considering cancer as one of the most common diseases for men and women, new treatments and more specific and effective drugs, which cause less side effects, have been actively pursued. Among them, gold-198 can be engineered as theranostic agents, working as contrast (exploiting gamma emission) and treatment agents (beta emission). Accordingly, a new procedure for the production of 14 nm diameter radioactive citrate protected gold-198 nanoparticles, that were then conjugated with bovine serum albumin utilizing 3-mercaptopropionic acid directly bound to AuNPs surface as anchoring groups, generating fully dispersible nanoparticles in aqueous media, are described. The effect of gamma and beta radiation on grafted BSA was evaluated by direct irradiation of the corresponding cold material and comparing with the damage caused on BSA grafted gold-198 nanoparticles prepared from a neutron activated gold foil. The investigation by fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy indicated that the damage to BSA chromophore groups is proportional to the dose (from 0.1 to 1 kGy) and that chromophores groups close to the particle surface are more prone to damage. Gold-198 nanoparticles conjugated with bovine serum albumin showed that process is much more localized next to nanoparticles surface since each gold core acts as a punctual radiation source. In short, AuNPs can enhance the damage caused by irradiation of cold nanoparticles and AuNPs@MPA-BSA is a suitable model to probe the effect of gamma and beta emitter on biomolecules. Furthermore, the strategy of diluting the gold-198 with cold gold atoms was shown to be suitable to control the activity of 198AuNPs aiming medical applications, since the damage to BSA was found to be proportional to the relative concentration of gold-198.