Toxicological investigations of "naked" and polymer-entrapped AOT-based gold nanotriangles.

Negatively charged ultrathin gold nanotriangles (AuNTs) were synthesized in a vesicular dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (AOT)/phospholipid-based template phase. These "naked" AuNTs with localized surface plasmon resonances in the NIR region at about 1300 nm and special photothermal properties are of particular interest for imaging and hyperthermia of cancerous tissues. For these kinds of applications the toxicity and the cellular uptake of the AuNTs is of outstanding importance. Therefore, this study focuses on the toxicity of "naked" AOT-stabilized AuNTs compared to polymer-coated AuNTs. Polymeric coating consisted of non-modified hyperbranched poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI), maltose-modified poly(ethyleneimine) (PEI-Mal) and heparin. The toxicological experiments were carried out with two different cell lines (embryonic kidney carcinoma cell line HEK293T and NK-cell leukemia cell line YTS). This study revealed that the heparin-coating of AuNTs improved biocompatibility by a factor of 50 when compared to naked AuNTs. Of note, the highest nontoxic concentration of the AuNTs coated with PEI and PEI-Mal is drastically decreased. Overall, this is mainly triggered by the different surface charges of polymeric coatings. Therefore, AuNTs coated with heparin were selected to carry out uptake studies. Their promising high biocompatibility and cellular uptake may open future studies in the field of biomedical applications.