Gold Nanocages: Bioconjugation and Their Potential Use as Optical Imaging Contrast Agents

✍ Scribed by Chen, Jingyi; Saeki, Fusayo; Wiley, Benjamin J.; Cang, Hu; Cobb, Michael J.; Li, Zhi-Yuan; Au, Leslie; Zhang, Hui; Kimmey, Michael B.; Li, ; Xia, Younan

• Book ID: 118259472
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 263 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1530-6984
• DOI: 10.1021/nl047950t

✦ Synopsis

Gold nanocages of <40 nm in dimension have been synthesized using the galvanic replacement reaction between Ag nanocubes and HAuCl 4 in an aqueous solution. By controlling the molar ratio between Ag and HAuCl 4 , the gold nanocages could be tuned to display surface plasmon resonance peaks around 800 nm, a wavelength commonly used in optical coherence tomography (OCT) imaging. OCT measurements on phantom samples indicate that these gold nanocages have a moderate scattering cross-section of ∼8.10 × 10 -16 m 2 but a very large absorption cross-section of ∼7.26 × 10 -15 m 2 , suggesting their potential use as a new class of contrast agents for optical imaging. When bioconjugated with antibodies, the gold nanocages have also been demonstrated for specific targeting of breast cancer cells.