One-step shell polymerization of inorganic nanoparticles and their applications in SERS/nonlinear optical imaging, drug delivery and catalysis

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 4; no. 1; p. 5593
• Main Authors: Liu, Tzu-Ming, Yu, Jiashing, Chang, C. Allen, Chiou, Arthur, Chiang, Huihua Kenny, Chuang, Yu-Chun, Wu, Cheng-Han, Hsu, Che-Hao, Chen, Po-An, Huang, Chih-Chia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 07.07.2014; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 14/69; 140/133; 147/143; 639/301/357/404; 639/638/298/916; 639/925/357/354; Antineoplastic Agents - chemistry; Antineoplastic Agents - pharmacology; Biocompatibility; Biosensors; Catalysis; Drug delivery; Drug Screening Assays, Antitumor; Gold - chemistry; Green Chemistry Technology; HeLa Cells; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Hydrophobicity; Integration; Magnetite Nanoparticles - chemistry; Magnetite Nanoparticles - ultrastructure; Maleic acid; multidisciplinary; Nanocapsules - chemistry; Nanocapsules - ultrastructure; Nanocomposites; Nanocomposites - chemistry; Nanocomposites - ultrastructure; Nanoparticles; Optical Imaging; Optical properties; Photodynamic therapy; Photosensitizing Agents - chemistry; Photosensitizing Agents - pharmacology; Polymerization; Polymers; Polystyrene; Polystyrenes - chemistry; Science; Silver - chemistry; Styrene; Surface plasmon resonance; Titanium - chemistry
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/srep05593

Surface functionalized nanoparticles have found their applications in several fields including biophotonics, nanobiomedicine, biosensing, drug delivery and catalysis. Quite often, the nanoparticle surfaces must be post-coated with organic or inorganic layers during the synthesis before use. This work reports a generally one-pot synthesis method for the preparation of various inorganic-organic core-shell nanostructures (Au@polymer, Ag@polymer, Cu@polymer, Fe 3 O 4 @polymer and TiO 2 @polymer), which led to new optical, magnetic and catalytic applications. This green synthesis involved reacting inorganic precursors and poly(styrene- alt -maleic acid). The polystyrene blocks separated from the external aqueous environment acting as a hydrophobic depot for aromatic drugs and thus illustrated the integration of functional nanoobjects for drug delivery. Among these nanocomposites, the Au@polymer nanoparticles with good biocompatibility exhibited shell-dependent signal enhancement in the surface plasmon resonance shift, nonlinear fluorescence and surface-enhanced Raman scattering properties. These unique optical properties were used for dual-modality imaging on the delivery of the aromatic photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy to HeLa cells.