Co-opting disease pathology for personalized medicine; utilizing endogenous biomaterials to generate theranostic nanoparticles

Abstract

Various biomolecules and cell types have been demonstrated to have the capacity to form plasmonic gold nanoparticles when chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) is introduced.We have demonstrated the capacity and utility of nanoparticles generated from endogenous biomolecules through three examples which can potentially be applied to multitudes of applications (1) Through a point of care reactive gel, acting as a scaffold for ionic gold (Au3+) capable of sensing reductive biomolecules presented in high concentrations during eye injury; (2) The generation of gold nanoparticles intrecellularly for enhanced phenotype observation of the cell combined with therapeutic potential; and (3) A simplistic, single-step means of generating gold nanoparticles functionalized with whole cell membrane which imparts minimal impact on biomolecule integrity. From this body of works we have demonstrated that multitudes of endogenous biomaterials have the capacity to reduce and form nanoparticles by variety of mechanisms which can directly be applied to sensing pathological states, applying therapy, as well as a means for improvement on previous biomimetic theranostics.