For the first time, it has been proved that gold nanorods can effectively
stop the growth of cervical cancer cells by the researchers at the Swinburne
University of Technology, Australia. The well-known HeLa cell lines were used
in the laboratory study of attaching the nanorods to their cell receptors.
The gold nanorods, with growth factors attached to their
tips, stop the clustering of the cell receptors and stop the progress
of cell growth. The reason why this happens is because apparently the cell
receptors need to reach a certain density in a region for a signal from the
growth factors to be passed into the cell.
The abstract of the article published in
the journal Small, "Inhibiting EGFR Clustering and Cell Proliferation with Gold
Nanoparticles," authored by Chiara Paviolo, James W. M. Chon and Andrew H. A.
Clayton says:
"Gold nano-particles are
functionalized with epidermal growth factor (EGF) molecules and incubated with
HeLa cells. These new complexes mechanically interfere with the activation of
EGF receptors in a length-dependent manner. Protein-functionalized gold
nano-particles hold great potential for unveiling the fundamental
characteristics of cell receptors and for future pharmacological studies on
receptor targeting."
Source: Medindia
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