Au Nanoparticle Loaded with 6-Thioguanine Anticancer Drug as a New Strategy for Drug Delivery

In this study we suggested a new strategy for drug delivery of 6-thioguanine (6-TG) as a cancer drug by loading of this thiolic drug at a surface of Au nanoparticles. For this goal, we synthesized Au nanoparticle (Au/NPs) by reduction of tetrachloroauric (III) acid solutions by sodium borohydride and characterized Au/NPs by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), Ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) methods. Results showed good distribution of synthesized Au nanoparticle with diameter ~ 5 nm. In the second step, we loaded 6-thioguanine with strong Au-S bond by addition of this drug to Au nanoparticle suspension and characterized it by UV-Vis method. Furthermore, Au nanoparticle loaded with 6-thioguanine was utilized as a new system against breast cancer cell line (MCF7). IC50 for free 6-thioguanine, unloaded Au nanoparticle and 6-thioguanine loaded Au nanoparticle (6-TG/Au/NPs) were >15.0, 80.0 and 3.5 μg/ml, respectively. The results obtained revealed high cytotoxicity effect of 6-TG/Au/NPs on breast cancer cell line.