Gold Nanorods Found to Reduce Cervical Cancer Cell Growth

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