Interaction of gold nanorods with ovarian cells: toxicity, uptake and intracellular distribution

In recent decades, gold nanorods have been widely used in biomedical fields, such as drug delivery, phototherapy, diagnosis and biosensing, due to their unique properties. And biosafety assessment and therapeutic effect of gold nanorods are very important for their application in biomedicine. In order to evaluate the biological safety and therapeutic effect of gold nanorods, it is necessary to solve the problem of the interaction between cells and gold nanorods. However, the complexity of the gold nanorods properties, cell type and microenvironment will affect the interaction between cells and gold nanorods. In this study, by comparing normal ovarian cancer cells (HOSEpiC) with cancerous ovarian cancer cells (HO-8910), we investigated the toxicity of gold nanorods to the two different kinds of cells, the uptake of gold nanorods by the two different kinds of cells and the intracellular distribution of gold nanorods after they enter the cells. In addition, the effect of protein corona on the interaction of gold nanorods with ovarian cells was also explored. The results showed that the cytotoxicity of gold nanorods and the uptake of gold nanorods by cells were affected by many factors. And the presence of protein corona significantly reduced the internalization ability of gold nanorods. This study will provide a research basis for the future application of gold nanorods in the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer.