Immuno gold nanocages with tailored optical properties for targeted photothermal destruction of cancer cells

Gold nanocages with a relatively small size (e.g., ∼45 nm in edge length) have been developed, and the structure of these nanocages was tailored to achieve strong absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) region for photothermal cancer treatment. Numerical calculations show that the nanocage has a large absorption cross section of 3.48 × 10^-14 m², facilitating conversion of NIR irradiation into heat. The gold nanocages were conjugated with monoclonal antibodies (anti-HER2) to target epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) that are overexpressed on the surface of breast cancer cells (SK-BR-3). Our preliminary photothermal results show that the nanocages strongly absorb light in the NIR region with an intensity threshold of 1.5 W/cm² to induce thermal destruction to the cancer cells. In the intensity range of 1.5-4.7 W/cm², the circular area of damaged cells increased linearly with the irradiation power density. These results suggest that this new class of bioconjugated gold nanostructures, immuno gold nanocages, can potentially serve as an effective photothermal therapeutic agent for cancer treatment.