Energy dependence of gold nanoparticle radiosensitization in plasmid DNA

McMahon, SJ.; Hyland, WB; Brun, E; Butterworth, KT; Coulter, JA; Douki, T; Hirst, DG; Jain, S; Kavanagh, AP; Krpetic, Z; Mendenhall, MH; Muir, MF; Prise, KM; Requardt, H; Sanche, L; Schettino, G; Currell, FJ; Sicard-Roselli, C

Abstract

Gold nanopa rticles (GNPs) are of considerableinterest for use as a radiosensitizer, because of their biocompat-ibility and their ability to increase dose deposited because oftheir high mass energy absorption coefficient. Their sensitizingproperties have been verified experimentally, but a discrepancybetween the exper imental results and theoretical predictionssuggests that the sensitizing effect does not depend solely ongold’s superior absorption of energetic photons. Thi s workpresents the results of three sets of experiments that indepen-dently mapped out the energy dependence of the radiosensitiz-ing effects of GNPs on plasmid DNA suspended in water. Incident photon energy was varied from 11.8 to 80 keV through the use ofmonochromatic synchrotron and broadband X-rays. These results depart significantly from the theoretical predictions in two ways:First, the sensitization is signi ficantly larger than would be predicted; second, it does not vary with energy as would be predicted fromenergy absorption coefficients. These results clearly demonstra te that the effects of GNP-enhanced therapies cannot be predicted byconsidering additional dose alone and that a greater understanding of the processes involved is necessary for the development offuture therapeutics

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Sep 13, 2011
• Deposit Date: Oct 11, 2016
• Journal: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C
• Print ISSN: 1932-7447
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-7455
• Publisher: American Chemical Society
• Volume: 115
• Issue: 41
• Pages: 20160-20167
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jp206854s
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jp206854s
• Related Public URLs: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231648414_Energy_Dependence_of_Gold_Nanoparticle_Radiosensitization_in_Plasmid_DNA