Gemcitabine-loaded gold nanospheres mediated by albumin for enhanced anti-tumor activity combining with CT imaging.

Currently, the development of a more effective therapy approach overcoming the resistance to chemotherapy for lung cancer still faces great challenges and requires further investigation. Herein, we fabricated gemcitabine (Gem) loaded gold nanospheres mediated by bovine serum albumin (Au@BSA) for the efficient delivery of therapeutic agents into the human pulmonary carcinoma cells (A549) and simultaneous computed tomography (CT) imaging. These nanoparticles (Au@BSA) with an approximate diameter of 10 nm were single crystals and prepared through a protein-directed facile one-pot synthesis via the reduction of chloroauric acid (HAuCl4) utilizing bovine serum albumin (BSA) as the stabilizer. The resulting positive charged Au@BSA nanospheres were conjugated with the negative Gem which served as the chemotherapeutic payload by electrostatic layer-by-layer assembling interactions to form Au@BSA-Gem. Our results demonstrated that the obtained biomimetic Au@BSA nanospheres were biocompatible with low cytotoxicity while the Gem-loaded ones exhibited obvious effects with efficiencies significantly greater than that of the free Gem.