A New View on the Application of Gold Nanoparticles in Cancer Therapy

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel application of gold nanoparticles as sources of terahertz radiation to inhibit cancer cell activity, exploring effects not previously utilized in biomedical research.

Contribution

It introduces the idea that gold nanoparticles under 8 nm can generate THz radiation and discusses their potential in cancer therapy, considering effects like local electric fields.

Findings

Gold nanoparticles <8 nm may emit THz radiation.

Nanoparticles near DNA grooves could be most effective.

Local electric fields influence nanoparticle interactions with cells.

Abstract

In biomedical research and the practice of cancer therapy, gold nanoparticles have been used to visualize malignant tumors, as the heated bodies for hyperthermia of cancer cells, as drug carriers to deliver drugs to a cancer cell, but, to the best of our knowledge, they have not yet been used consciously as the sources of terahertz (THz) radiation delivered to a cancer cell that contributes to the inhibition of cell activity. It is predicted here that gold nanoparticles less than 8 nm in size are sources of spontaneous THz radiation, and the possibility of their application in oncology is due to the known effects of THz radiation on the cells of living organisms. There are indications that nanoparticles with a size comparable to the width of the major groove of the DNA molecule will be the most effective. Another effect that has not yet been taken into account in biomedical studies using gold nanoparticles is that of local electric fields due to the contact potential difference above edges and vertices of gold nanoclusters. The prerequisites and possibilities for searching for the manifestations of these two effects when gold nanoparticles are introduced into living cells of organisms are considered.