Poster Session #1: UC South Ballroom
Gold Nanorods
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
David Macaluso
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Scientists are capable of creating gold nanoparticles with molecule-like dimensions. These particles can produce specific biological responses, which make them highly desirable for numerous biomedical and commercial applications. Although gold is typically biologically inert, the nanorods must be tested for toxicity to make sure they are safe. In our work, human THP-1 cells were exposed to gold nanorods of various diameters and light absorbances related to plasmon resonances. The THP-1 cells were transformed into macrophage-like cells for 24 hours prior to particle exposure. These cell cultures were then incubated for an additional 24 hours with gold variants, after which we run LDH* and MTS* assays to evaluate their toxicity. We determined that several nanorods were extremely toxic while others appeared harmless. We also assessed the relative bioactivity of the nanorods using an IL-1beta (ELISA) assay. We found some particles to be active only at the lowest concentrations and others to be bioactive only at high concentrations. The results indicated highly variable biological responses to gold nanorod exposure, which appears to primarily depend on particle geometry. There also appears to be a ‘safe zone’ where the gold was neither toxic nor bioactive which corresponds to gold nanoparticles with peak optical absorption in the 800 nm wavelength range. We intend to further explore these results by exposing mice to a ‘safe’ gold nanorod species in comparison to a bioactive and toxic variant, while also looking at changes in lung morphology, gold retention, and inflammatory markers between exposure groups.
Category
Physical Sciences
Gold Nanorods
Scientists are capable of creating gold nanoparticles with molecule-like dimensions. These particles can produce specific biological responses, which make them highly desirable for numerous biomedical and commercial applications. Although gold is typically biologically inert, the nanorods must be tested for toxicity to make sure they are safe. In our work, human THP-1 cells were exposed to gold nanorods of various diameters and light absorbances related to plasmon resonances. The THP-1 cells were transformed into macrophage-like cells for 24 hours prior to particle exposure. These cell cultures were then incubated for an additional 24 hours with gold variants, after which we run LDH* and MTS* assays to evaluate their toxicity. We determined that several nanorods were extremely toxic while others appeared harmless. We also assessed the relative bioactivity of the nanorods using an IL-1beta (ELISA) assay. We found some particles to be active only at the lowest concentrations and others to be bioactive only at high concentrations. The results indicated highly variable biological responses to gold nanorod exposure, which appears to primarily depend on particle geometry. There also appears to be a ‘safe zone’ where the gold was neither toxic nor bioactive which corresponds to gold nanoparticles with peak optical absorption in the 800 nm wavelength range. We intend to further explore these results by exposing mice to a ‘safe’ gold nanorod species in comparison to a bioactive and toxic variant, while also looking at changes in lung morphology, gold retention, and inflammatory markers between exposure groups.