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Updated: Jan 24, 2026

Synthesis of Near-Infrared Emitting Gold Nanoclusters for Biological Applications
Published on: March 22, 2020
Gold nanoclusters as a contrast agent for image-guided surgery of head and neck tumors
Cindy Colombé1, Xavier Le Guével2, Angela Martin-Serrano3
1Cancer Targets & Experimental Therapeutics, Institute for Advanced Biosciences (IAB), University of Grenoble Alpes- INSERM U1209 - CNRS UMR 5309, Grenoble, France; Grenoble Alpes University Hospital, Grenoble, France.
Abstract:
With the objective to evaluate the potential of ultra-small gold (Au) nanoclusters (NCs) for optical image-guided surgery, we synthesized and characterized AuNCs shelled by zwitterionic or pegylated ligands. The toxicity of the different AuNCs was evaluated on the Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSCC) CAL-33 and SQ20B cell lines in vitro. The safer AuNCs were administrated intravenously to mice for the determination of the pharmacokinetic properties. Biodistributions were performed on orthotopic CAL-33 HNSCC-bearing mice. Finally, the AuNCs were used for image-guided surgery, allowing the increase of the survival time vs. control animals, and the number of animals without any local recurrence.
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