Facile preparation of cationic gold nanoparticle-bioconjugates for cell penetration and nuclear targeting

The present work faces the rising demand of cationic particles of different sizes for biological applications, especially in gene therapies and nanotoxicology studies. A simple phase-transfer methodology has been developed for the functionalization of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) with a variety of ligands, both cationic and anionic in aqueous solution, employing different nanocrystal sizes with narrow size distributions. Successful functionalization has been demonstrated by UV-vis spectroscopy, DLS, ζ-potential, and FTIR spectroscopy characterization of the particles before and after the phase transfer. The intracellular uptake of the differently charged Au NPs functionalized with peptidic biomolecules was investigated with human fibroblasts (1BR3G) by ICP-MS analysis of the digested cells and confocal fluorescence microscopy, which showed increased internalization of the cationic bioconjugates. Nuclear targeting could be observed by TEM, suggesting that the cationic peptidic biomolecule is acting as a nuclear localization signal.